


The Thoughts of Angels

by pinkolifant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 34
Words: 167,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkolifant/pseuds/pinkolifant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They say that the Veil of Death is made from the liquid thoughts of angels. Not just any angels, the guardian angels who failed to protect their charges. The protectors of orphans and lost children. It's made of their thoughts turned dense, like the frozen tears of regret..."<br/>The Veil of Death is a time travel device. AU after the OoTP that will follow until the end of the Deathly Hallows and a bit beyond. Many character many chapter ongoing story with not such a bad plot, or so I hope.<br/>Updated and clarified in January 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Stone House Above the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius and Ariana meet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter and I make no profit out of writing this.

A simple stone house overlooked the sea, pale against the sky of winter cold.

Sirius Black was trapped inside the house. _It's not supposed to be winter_ , he thought. It should have been the glorious month of June, just before summer school holidays, when he arrived. He drifted in semi-conscious state, glossy eyes barely mirrored in the small window glass high up on the wall, covered by ghastly dirt of many years.

He remembered his last conscious thought before falling into the Veil: _This is as it should be._ He could almost feel the caress of green light on his skin, still laughing, eyes slowly widening in shock.

When he opened his eyes again, he briefly considered his troubled and rather short life and found rapidly that he preferred it by far to a long life filled with all the happiness of this world where he would have never met his friends or given his life for his godson.

Only he didn't expect death to be just so… uneventful. Between cold stone walls, he stood on his toes to peer through a miniature rounded window covered with grime, wishing to get a glimpse of the outside. He was trying to see something, anything at all. There wasn't anything. There wasn't anyone. He was utterly and completely alone.

_I'm imprisoned._

_Again._

He examined the room he was in over and over again. The walls were died plain white, with masonry visible beyond paint on some places. The room was very small and empty except for an old Muggle painting depicting the birth of a baby at night with a heavy dark blue sky above the little boy and his parents. There was a bright star depicted high above the characters and a pair of winged beings playing musical instruments. The ominous dark blue of the sky dominated the painting occupying almost three quarters of the available surface, threatening to grow over all other figures and completely conquer the scenery.

Yet the family seemed at peace, unhinged by the rage of the elements around them. A small source of ephemeral light was illuminating the body of the child and the face of his mother, while father stood in the shadows, turning his ear to listen to the music from above.

Sirius studied the painting obsessively as there was nothing else to look at but it remained a beautiful, yet lifeless object to his eyes. He concluded there wasn't much fairness in death just as there wasn't any in life. The star vaguely reminded him of his namesake Sirius and of just how much he hated his name, another heirloom of his insane family where all known members have been named upon the stars.

He must have been here for a really long time. Already for a while, he noticed he was hungry. _This should not matter in death_ , he mused, yet the hunger grew with every passing hour. Or was it days?

The magic of the room was wrong. Whenever he tried to use his wand to reveal something about his surroundings there were no results. Only strange jolts of light would come out of it whenever he approached the painting in his attempts. So he dropped the wand on the stone floor in front of the cursed image. What was once almost a part of his body, was now a useless tool.

At a certain point thirst became unbearable. His lips were getting thin and dry like old parchment half-eaten by Pixies. His sight blurred and he thought that through one of the walls of his small cell he could glimpse a human figure. The figure was ghostlike and it moved graciously at the edge of his vision. He stumbled to the wall, touched it, hit it with his fists and cried out in helpless rage.

Then he laughed like one possessed by all the demons of this world.

It took him some time to calm down and start pacing stubbornly around the room, examining it all over again: the walls, the painting, the window.

_The walls, the painting, the window._

He repeated the routine countless times until in the end he could not walk. So he crawled.

_The walls, the painting, the window._

When he could not move at all, he lay beaten on the ground. The ghost of his imagination was near him yet somewhere far away. He longed for blissful oblivion as his experience of death so far definitely didn't meet his expectations.

_Imagine being cursed to death by your own cousin only to die once again from thirst!_

_Bellatrix, my dear_ , he mused, _what are you up to now? Killing some more family members you don't approve of only to please your master? But you didn't get to Harry, did you? I took care of that._

He smiled and found himself hoping fervently that Voldemort would kill Bellatrix for her failure to bring him Harry. That would be fair just like Sirius's demise had been more than fitting for the last son of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. He was almost happy again looking at his situation from that perspective and decided to ignore his thirst. Yes, the accursed family name had died out with him as it should have happened long ago in order to pay for all the evil they had done or sponsored in the past. He found it appropriate that he should suffer in death for what had been done under the name he bore even if he renounced his family when he was only sixteen years old.

Knowing that he died rather than betrayed his friends brought him a good measure of self-fulfilment. Sirius always wanted to go down fighting since the war started and he couldn't help but hope that James would have been proud.

Yet he always expected he would see James and Lily Potter when he died. He would tell them how their son Harry, they Boy Who Lived, vanquished their murderer once and was about to do it again. He would ask them for forgiveness because he unwillingly caused their death.

Sirius almost felt sorry for Bellatrix who was surely going to lose her mentor murderer in the future. He had to give her one thing: dear Bellatrix was the best in her category of wizards and witches. She befriended only the evillest of all. And Voldemort qualified for that honourable title.

Had things gone differently in Sirius's life, would he personally embrace the darkness and the twisted greatness it seemed to offer? A deeply hidden part of him screamed for revenge power could bring for the twelve years of his life lost in Azkaban, the wizarding prison whose Dementor guardians had sucked out all happiness he possessed and very nearly consumed his soul. He was sentenced without trial, escaped, and had been on the run until he was finally hiding in his parents' house, back to his childhood cage, more horrible to his soul than any Dementor could ever be.

"Please, give me some water", he thought or perhaps he spoke, he could not be sure.

"I'm dying," he whispered. "Why can't I see Lily and James if we are all dead?"

Sirius closed his eyes and drifted slowly into his past. He was eleven again and saw for the first time the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The castle rose in his mind making his chest swell with emotion. Sirius smiled and passed out, only an inch away from well and truly dying.

He dreamed an odd song sung by childlike voices about his suffering and his regrets. The warm and loving family he never had and which he always imagined as a child and later as a notorious prisoner. The role of observer forced upon him in the second war against Voldemort and the maddening confinement in his parents' house. The war he wanted to lead in only to be among the first ones to fall. He stumbled under the burden of his biggest regret: his own role in James and Lily's death, recommending them as a keeper of their secret location Peter Pettigrew, the man who had then truly betrayed them to Voldemort.

Until one winter morning, when he could barely stir from exhaustion, a breeze came, a fragrance of freshness and growing things. He could not be sure that it was morning, yet the sensation was delicious and almost palpable, the first taste of coming spring. He would have performed a Memory Charm on himself to forget that feeling if he could still locate his wand but he was too week to search for it.

Sirius desired to return to numbness, for he could not bear to suffer yet another disappointment should this change mean nothing at all. He was sure that if he hadn't been insane before, as most of his family members were said to be, approximately a week after falling through the Veil, he was completely and utterly mad.

Against his better judgement, he started to hope. For what, he could not tell. And the scent was lingering.

xxxxxxxxx

Ariana Dumbledore celebrated the 12th anniversary of living alone in a small stone house in the middle of nowhere surrounded only by the collection of her family old furniture and obsolete magical objects. Her late father had a passion for collecting beautiful useless items so she shared the already small space with paintings, mirrors, carpets, textiles, candle holders and jewels, some of them cursed long time ago but nowadays as innocent as a new born child. There was also a significant number of wizarding books, none of them state of the art but all of them teaching a bit here and a bit there about all kinds of magic.

Albus's old friend Gellert used a Portkey to transport her to her new home twelve years ago on Albus's bidding. Every now and then Gellert would bring her fresh food supplies and some more insignificant books to fill her time with. His visits disturbed her deeply. He would tell her how Albus kept promising ( _in vain_ , she always thought bitterly, _all Albus's promises have been in vain_ ) that he would find her a better place to stay one day, while Aberforth only scowled and glared at the injustice of her situation but could not sway Albus, who was her legal guardian, to help her.

She could not blame her brothers. It was not their fault that their sister was a lunatic and a freak who had to be kept away not to hurt somebody with uncontrolled magic. Sometimes she wished she was a real Squib. Or a Muggle. She would not wish upon anyone the horrible reality of not being able to summon her magic at will, nor to do anything with it. Except that her magic could come uncalled for and hurt people she loved.

She begged Albus to kill her after she had caused an explosion that accidentally killed their mother.

Ariana had been confined ever since, for a year in their family house in Godric's Hollow and then in the small stone house in the middle of somewhere. Ariana didn't know where she was and after twelve years she didn't care to find out.

Her brothers explained to her in the beginning that it was for her own good but she found that knowing and accepting what was for one's own good were two very different things.

Refusing to think about her life she decided to be happy on one more anniversary of her solitary imprisonment. At least here she could not hurt anybody. Sometimes she thought much more time had passed, almost a lifetime, but the dates from the newspapers Gellert would bring denied this assumption and she was silently afraid of going utterly mad. Her body has changed and she felt older, not old, not that old, but not a girl any more.

She looked at herself and straightened her heavy woollen winter robes in light grey colour with a pattern of scattered lemon yellow stars, a gift from her brother Aberforth for her 14th birthday when she was still free. Luckily she didn't grow much in height since then, only her hair had grown considerably and the braid she wore was so heavy that it caused her headaches.

Ariana released her hair from the tight grip of a black ebony hair pin. Reckless golden blond curls that gleamed orange in the sunlight fell over her shoulders and all over her back.

She improvised a cake from all kinds of food she had, from home-made biscuits and pieces of old bread smearing it over with the last remnants of raspberry jam she saved for that occasion. She wished she could conjure twelve candles, aware that she could blow herself up in the attempt to do it. So she closed her eyes and imagined them burning. She imagined herself in a pale orange dress in the garden of the family house where she lived as a child. Her parents and her brothers were there, beaming at her. In her mind she had a beautiful wand which she used to gracefully light the candles. Blowing the imaginary candles out, she wished in the back of the mind, subconsciously, that someone would come and take her away from her cell somewhere else, any place else, near or far, with the only condition that she had never seen it before.

She kept her eyes closed for a very long time. A breeze passed over her head carrying the scent of fresh herbs and the sea. There was no noise but she could still hear the movement of the waves gently washing the shore in the early morning. Her magic was running through her as a wild animal about to tear apart from the leash it had overgrown in time.

When she opened her eyes, her surroundings were changed. The room had become smaller, divided in two by a transparent wall. She approached the barrier and touched it. It felt smooth under her fingers yet firmer than brick and stone. She could not cross.

 _Wonderful,_ she thought attributing the change to her uncontrolled magic. _I will crush myself with walls next time and be done with this._

And then, beyond the barrier, under the Muggle painting that Gellert found with a woman who was dying and offered it to her father some twenty years ago, she saw a man. An unnaturally white-faced man with bewildered grey eyes and black curly hair falling to his shoulders. He was wearing a dark coloured velvet coat as if he had just joined her after some social occasion for gentlemen but the rest of his attire was much less formal. She had never seen a wizard dressed like that. She had never seen clothes like he wore.

She was terrified and hid herself in a corner before he could see her, regretting that she had undone her hair. Memories of insistent hands tugging on her hair flooded her mind, drawing her closer to the point of suffocation, three pairs of young hands, then only one, one pair of thin bony arms.

After a while, curiosity was stronger than her fears and she realised what she had wished for. She understood that she wanted to lash out and kill herself with her magic somewhere in the open if that was indeed her destiny. Being buried alive was no longer acceptable, she could not stand it any more. Ariana tapped the barrier and waved to the man but there was no reaction.

It took her the rest of that day to realize that the man couldn't see her. She fell asleep on the floor leaning on the barrier between them, her mind puzzled and her body restless. She woke up stiff and no more intelligent as to what she should do.

For three long days she observed him.

 _He's odd_ , she thought. _How can anybody support being enclosed with such dignity?_ Apart from the maddening laugh that sometimes took him, he never once tried banging his head to the wall or taking his own life, as it occurred to her to do every now and then during her prolonged stay in the house. He must have been getting hungry as well.

Another day passed and she realized she would have to do something to get him out, or he would die.

 _Let him die_ , said the voice of reason. _He is a man. He will hurt you. Boys have never been kind to you. Boys have spoiled you and ruined your use of magic. Everybody despises you now. You are a burden to your family. Your brothers don't want to see you any more._

The image of Gellert caressing her cheek came into mind and so did his other actions last time he brought her food, resembling so closely the actions of those Muggle boys when she was a child. Except that he went further. She had been ruined already so even if she told what Gellert did, no one would ever believe her. And since no one except Gellert ever came to visit her, there was no one to talk to anyway.

And nothing could be proven! Icy fingers on her cheek, freezing feeling on her body. Apparently if you did it the way Gellert wanted you could not even become with child, or so he told her. It didn't really hurt her but she felt tainted and a bit more dishonoured every time. She wished her mother lived longer and told her more about the ways of men towards women.

Gellert beamed about what he did to her, about what they did together according to him and announced his intention to marry her despite that she was a freak during his last visit. He would ask Albus for her hand before summer. She supposed that she should be grateful that someone wanted to marry a ruined girl while all she really wanted to do was to blast Gellert into the skies.

But her magic was not hers to command. Not when she wanted it anyway.

Ariana looked at the man sprawled on the floor in front of the painting, helpless, begging for water and babbling about wanting to see someone called Lily and James. It was the first time she heard him talk. She decided she liked the sound of his voice better than Gellert's and that he was probably too weak to hurt her.

She thought of Gellert's sinewy fingers clutching her forearms and felt the energy rolling out of her in direction of the barrier separating her from the intruder. The transparent wall still stood. Maybe she should be just a little bit angrier. She focused on what the Muggle boys did to her. Nothing happened.

She recalled the most dangerous memories she had, her father dying in prison for hurting the Muggles who hurt her. She purposefully recalled the explosion that killed her mother with the greatest detail she could muster. None of it worked. Her magic would not move, heavy as a coffin made of lead in which her father's remains were returned to the family from Azkaban.

The man in front of her was so pathetic and worn out. "I don't want him to die," she admitted out loud and the feeling of a new certainty erupted in a wave of magic surrounding her like a spongy, orange-glowing bubble in a way it had never happened before. The wall separating them lost gravity as an unconscious body crumbling down, before it started floating and finally diluted into the thin air, not blasted but somehow transformed into a gaseous substance. Ariana stumbled and nearly fell on the stranger, toppling over an inert piece of wood loose next to his limp hands.

 _His wand_ , she thought, sticking it carefully in one of the deep long pockets of her inner robes she never took off, not even for sleeping.

He was in a bad condition. Ariana had never had to care for anybody before. It was always she who needed help and protection of others. How was she going to take care of someone? Still, she couldn't deny feeling confident, refreshed and… powerful.

 _I can do this_ , she thought.

After all she tore down the wall without killing either of them and that was a good start.

She went for some water, sat next to him and started carefully pouring it into his dry mouth. One more drop. And then another. The man was drinking and breathing but showed no other reaction, his eyes closed all the time. He was different than her brothers or Gellert, careless and calm as a breeze. When he stopped drinking, she felt compelled to further probe this difference. She remembered her mother comforting her after her father's funeral. Imitating her mother's gestures, she cradled the man's head. Long dark hair spread in her lap mixing itself with the grey layers of her robes like feathers of a wild bird scattered on an empty beach in winter.

It was soothing.

She remained seated for a long time staring at the dirty window, imagining the distance behind it, closing her eyes to remember the colour of the sky.

When she opened her eyes to look down, a pair of shining grey eyes gazed at her in adoration as if she were a fairy from long forgotten tales she adored as a child.


	2. A New Place in London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a very particular structure (re)appears in London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.

The night that Sirius Black died a most peculiar structure appeared in Muggle London, between two shabby office blocks in a small street hosting underground the Ministry of Magic. The Muggles saw it as a new construction project with a big title in bright orange letters: " _Lyra's. Grand opening in June._ "

No one found it strange that the large structure did not even exist a week ago and that somehow it crept in-between the existing buildings that were usually there. Older people could swear it had been there before or that it had never gone missing in the first place. The house number was shaped as a pattern of stars resembling number thirteen, which was somehow adequate as the house inserted itself between numbers twelve and fourteen even if that side of the street was supposed to have only even numbers...

An old drunk sleeping on the bench between two trees across the new building tried to tell the police that there was something wrong. The police gently tapped him on the back. One of the agents felt particularly merciful that night so he bought dinner to the old man as well as a night in a cheap hotel. This agent believed he could participate in charity at least once a year and indulge in beating his wife on all the other days. The drunk hugged him enthusiastically and thanked him so many times.

Be as it may, the wife-abusing police agent decided to venture into the grounds of a construction site and saw a strange cuddled figure sleeping on a floor. It was a rather tall, unattractive woman, with dark chestnut-coloured curly hair tied firmly on top of her head. She could have been in her late thirties or early forties. Before he knew what happened a female voice started talking in his mind, "You want to leave all your possessions to your wife and go and spend the rest of your life in Brazil". _Splendid idea_ , thought the policeman, and retired slowly back to the street, with the intentiom to find his family lawyer as soon as possible and make the necessary arrangements.

To witches and wizards the structure looked like an apothecary shop similar to establishments that could be found on Diagon Alley, the main shopping street of the wizarding London. However, it had a large hall on the back side, which looked from the outside like a library or perhaps like a seclusion wing for incurable patients in St Mungos hospital.

The truth was that no one, Muggle or wizard, could see it as it really was. The back structure was lifted from the ground and it somehow floated in the air, supported only by two thin irregular buttresses with claws, similar to the legs of a giant bird or perhaps a prehistoric snake before the natural evolution left those animals legless. A sharper look could perhaps reveal it to be a large wooden family house neither standing fully on earth nor hovering in the skies. The house looked like it had flown to London overnight with the intention to stay there for a while, balancing in the void.

But the most disturbing thing was that many wizards suddenly remembered doing their shopping there on a daily basis and went on enthusiastically talking about the establishment to their friends and acquaintances. Oblivious to the extraordinary nature of the house, they saw it as a nice shop with large storage room in the back. Now, normally it was the Muggles, the blessedly non magical people, who could see and perceive many things that in reality were _not_ as they seemed. But it had to be duly noted that witches and wizards rarely made similar mistakes on such a large scale.

xxxxxxxxx

Severus Snape spent the night in the Ministry of Magic staring at the Veil of Death.

He arrived well after the battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the supporters of the Dark Lord as a double spy both for the Order and Lord Voldemort. He convinced both his masters that there was a need to investigate the aftermath of the skirmish. He surprised even himself by cold-blooded lying to both of them, lost in wondering whose side he was on. There were times when he wasn't sure from so much pretence.

Be as it may, Severus had always been on his own side and he had to admit at least to himself that the real reason why he hurried up to the Ministry of Magic that night was that his biggest enemy, Sirius Black, had died. The Gryffindor jumped thoughtlessly at first real occasion to protect his godson Harry Potter the-boy-who-might-one-day-vanquish-the-Dark-Lord and didn't come back.

Severus remembered treating Black with disdain, laughing at his uselessness for the Order while Sirius sat confined against his will in the headquarters, forced not to fight, no matter how much he may have wanted to, by the Head of the Order of the Phoenix no less, the seemingly invincible Headmaster of the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry Albus Dumbledore.

Snape was glad on many occasions not to possess the exuberant outgoing character of the now late Gryffindor. Sirius, the rebel, Sirius, the innocent, imprisoned for twelve years for no reason at all in Azkaban! _Great_ Sirius Black who wasted his youth in the company of the prison guards, the Dementors, magical beings able to suck out a soul and force inmates to relive the worst moments of their lives. And what for? Only to end up as an outcast, the hunted, locked up in his childhood prison – his parents' old house he had donated to the Order for Headquarters...

It looked as if Sirius had finally broken free. It made sense. And Severus should have been pleased. His childhood enemy, the boy and the young man who bullied him, was dead. Bellatrix Lestrange, born Black, cast a Killing Curse on her own cousin and his lifeless body dived into the Veil and disappeared, according to eye witnesses.

 _Bella is certainly going to be proud, she outdid herself this time,_ Severus judged briefly, remembering a different Bella, an older colleague in Hogwarts who was oddly protective of younger colleagues in the Slytherin house, full of life and so very similar to her Gryffindor cousin in nature before she plunged into darkness and became one of the most powerful Death Eaters and close confident of the Dark Lord himself.

Snape was genuinely, profoundly astonished by how terribly, dreadfully guilty he felt about the death of Sirius Black. He tried to rationalize this feeling by telling himself that Harry Potter saw a father in Sirius, and Snape wanted to protect the Potter boy only because he never stopped loving his mother Lily over the years, despite that she had died and had never loved him. Even before he formulated the argument fully in his consciousness, he knew it was rubbish.

If anyone could look into Snape's mind, and no one could, not even the Dark Lord, given his extreme ability at Occlumency, and even more extreme propensity towards general and constant hiding of what was in his soul, they would know an embarrassing fact. Severus regretted that Sirius Black died because Black, like so many others lost in war, did not deserve death.

And whilst the blame lay squarely on Voldemort and Bella and their Death Eating kind, Snape's taunting may have just given a tiny little nudge to the insufferable mutt, forcing him to rush into his premature death.

Snape would surely never admit it, maybe he was even unable to grasp it, but in the very bottom of his aged, injured soul dwelt a certainty that the light was the only way out of the darkness. Sirius, like many others, like Lily before him, had died for the light. And Snape knew he was going to do the same when his time came.

In the meantime, he surprised himself further wishing that the idiot of Black had lived.

The Veil of Death loomed high above the stony dais while Severus spent some time suppressing all his feelings with an enormous well-practised conscious effort. He was focusing on the facts, an endeavour he excelled in. The tattered curtain was black. It hung motionless and gave no sign of life. Occasionally he believed that it was dark blue in colour instead of black as if it reflected a cloudy sky many floors above in the streets outside the Ministry. His sharp mind started running through the premises of how a powerful magical object as the Veil clearly was could work. The most logical assumption would be that it was a transportation device of some kind as no body was found. But for what kind of travel, from place to place, through time, to another dimension, to another universe, to afterlife if it existed, or simply to the void, Severus could not tell. Not yet in any case. For a moment he was tempted to walk into it himself but that would be of no use to anybody before he could learn more.

Next to the edge of a pointed arch holding the Veil he noticed a few long dark hairs, which could have belonged to either Sirius or Bellatrix except that the smell reminded him of some tropical wood he would use in a rare potion against the aftereffects of unforgivable curses he sometimes brewed for days. Not having any other clues, he tucked them in his robes and remained seated like a statue, lost in his thoughts until dawn.

In the morning Severus cornered one of the Unspeakables, the employees in the Department of Misteries where the Veil was stored, and forced her to hand him over a pile of parchments describing the Veil's characteristics and known history. The woman, a distant relative of Amelia Bones, was very nervous. Severus noticed it and turned awfully nasty towards her until she started shaking and mentioned, first looking behind her back to be sure that no one was listening, that an ugly, short old man was seen around the Veil right after the battle, but as soon as the Aurors present on the scene tried to approach him, the wizard vanished into the thin air.

Carrying more questions than answers, Severus stormed out of the Ministry followed by a swish of his long black robes. Before Apparating, he noticed an old wooden shop sign saying "Peverell and son" in the street just above.

He remembered buying Venomous Tentacula leaves in that shop with his mother when he was just a little boy. There was something disturbing about this otherwise innocuous memory but he couldn't pinpoint the cause.

Wishing for a distraction from his murderous night thoughts about his role in the demise of Sirius Black, he gently pushed the door and entered. The shop was empty. He turned around to leave when a woman dressed in smooth black robes emerged from behind the counter under which she had been presumably crouching and arranging goods or perhaps even sleeping. Her robes were even simpler than his own, a rare occurrence in a woman and a witch, yet elegant and possibly self-made. Dark chestnut-coloured hair was pinned tight on the top of her head so that the length of it could not be seen, giving her a hard look, and her eyes were pale blue until they suddenly flashed with the tiniest flicker of... _Was it bright green?_

 _Impossible! Only Potter and Lily had those eyes!_ It had to be the effect of the light. Taking a better look he made sure that her eyes were clearly a mixture of grey and blue. One or two strands of curly hair escaped the bun and played on her face giving her a younger look for a moment. He could not tell her age and she certainly wasn't beautiful but she seemed vaguely familiar. Before he could ask her anything, a short old man whooshed into the shop and addressed him. The man was chubby and half-bald yet he moved too fast for his age and his demeanour was between self-assured and threatening. Severus was many things, but he was not a fool and the old man made him weary as very few people could.

"Good morning, Sir, how can I help you?" asked the newcomer cheerfully.

"Would you happen to have some leaves of asphodel and wormwood?" Severus asked in his most threatening tone failing to greet the seller, focusing again on the woman in his peripheral vision.

"Wormwood is in standard packaging of 100 grams. We have asphodel in jars of ten or of twenty leaves, what would you prefer?"

"Twenty will be fine."

The man moved or almost _rolled_ to the back of the shop to retrieve the ordered goods. Severus looked around, impatient as hell, and the feeling of uneasiness grew on him. Being a spy, his survival sometimes depended on checking on his uncanny feelings. So he couldn't resist casually asking the lady some questions, trying to be civil and painfully failing in his efforts as usual.

"Have we met?" Severus sounded as if he had just read out loud somebody's death sentence.

"I doubt it, why do you ask?" were the first words the lady in question. She pronounced them trying hard to sound bored, but Snape could tell that she had been deeply disturbed by his inquiry, precisely as was his intention, so he continued without mercy:

"I seem to recall visiting your shop before but I doubt that I have ever seen you."

"You seem to recall? Have you been here before or not?" The woman looked at Severus Snape in a most suspicious way as if he had just sprouted wings and tail.

Severus decided to change tactics and to try his best to put into good use his barely existing social skills and capacity to be polite, which he occasionally had to use at work if he didn't want his fellow Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall to turn him into an inanimate object.

"I believe so," Severus said, suddenly very unsure about remembering anything properly.

"We have many clients, Sir. However, we haven't met in person as I have just returned from Brazil to help my father with his business. I used to live there with my husband. He died several years ago."

"I'm so sorry to hear that, Madam," the empty reply came with a hint of real emotion and regret of being impertinent to this woman.

"How could you be? We haven't even met. I thank you but I do not require your sympathy," she snorted in a mocking tone, clearly despising his attempt at small talk. "Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Severus Snape and I teach potions at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I may come and buy supplies here more regularly so perhaps we should get acquainted." Now angry, Severus spoke in that hateful tone that would give cause to the entire class of first years to burst into tears and run out of his classroom.

The female seller kept eyeing him with distrust and loathing. Severus Snape came to expect that from most people who ever bothered to consider his physical attributes from the bottom of his robes to his lank, black, greasy hair. After a while, she seemed to have relented.

"Well, then, Mr Snape, I am Val Peverell, at your service," she said with cold politeness.

In that instant the male seller returned with his order and wrapped it in fine dark blue paper with a pattern of silver stars, somewhat more luxurious than required for a decent apothecary.

"Father, please meet Mr Snape," Val said curtly.

"Ignotus Peverell, at your service."

"Professor Snape, Mr Peverell," Snape presented himself properly in a stern tone, noticing briefly that the shape of Mr Peverell somehow shifted as if he was and was not in the room at the same time. Severus did not believe in miracles, or in any deity, wizarding or Muggle. Hence he knew there had to be a rational magical explanation for the strangeness of the shop's owner and his own most probably false memory of ever visiting it before.

"Slytherin, I reckon, always maintaining the appearances and pursuing their own goals. Please excuse me if I'm wrong", commented Mr Peverell merrily, "Myself I was in Huffelpuff, graduated in 1942, I just wanted to embrace everybody I met and I didn't much care for either cunning, intellect or bravery… That's how I became a shopkeeper I guess, for wanting to work with people."

"I am the Head of the Slytherin house at Hogwarts," Severus retorted trying to suppress his extreme annoyance at being addressed in such overly familiar manner. "I assume your charming daughter was in Hufflepuff as well. How curious that I don't recall her. We should have been in school at approximately the same time."

"I went to Chile Academy for Advanced Witchcraft, Mr Snape. A much better school if you ask my opinion. My father told me about Hogwarts houses but I don't recognise myself in any of them," Val said in an arrogant tone of a person who found English educational system despicable.

"If you want a hint, Mr Snape, I could never imagine her in Hufflepuff. She's way too stubborn for that. It runs in the family on her mother's side," said Peverell with conviction.

"Dad, let's not annoy _Professor_ Snape with our stories. I believe he was just leaving," Val smiled to Snape, ushering him through the door before he could continue the conversation. Mr Peverell yelled behind him: "Have a goody good day! We can chat some more next time!"

Severus let himself being shoved out with even more questions in his mind than before he had entered the shop. He wondered what Hogwarts house the daughter or her mother for that matter would have been in, while Apparating in direction of Hogwarts. He considered the words of the Unspeakable, a short old man, a few black hairs… _Black or chestnut? Did she say her name was Val?_ She had brown chestnut-coloured hair.

Peverell was an old name but Snape believed that they had all died out. They were from Godric's Hollow, like Potters and Dumbledores. He put a mental note to check the information on the old man in Hogwarts yearbooks. There was something so wrong, so very wrong about Peverell and son, other than the shop being run by Peverell and daughter. Severus could smell it, he was sure of it. He went to the dungeons to put his new herbs in a storage closet admiring again the elegant wrapping paper of the parcel.

Later on, at night, while brewing the Draught of the Living Dead from his newly purchased ingredients in the mouldy peace and quiet of the dungeons, he paused to discard the wrapping and froze.

The paper exhibited the constellation of Canis Major and burning in the middle of it was the brightest star of them all.

The Dog Star.

Sirius.

The Potions Master did something he hadn't done for years, since his mother died. Softly, he said a Muggle prayer for the dead, may they all rest in peace. Snape had a premonition he was going to join them soon.

And he found it a much better idea to pray than to allow himself to think about dead enemies, or begin to cry.


	3. Acquaintance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius gets it all wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.

When Sirius woke, he saw a pair of eyes, bright blue like the sky on a summer day.

He stared at the girl, or rather a young woman with long blond hair that could belong to the Malfoys if it wasn't for the slightest touch of orange gleam that clung to it like a fiery mist. Her blue eyes were narrow and full of light, flickering with satisfaction.

He felt overwhelmed by desire to break out and talk to somebody even if this woman was clearly either a product of his crazed mind or otherwise a creature of the afterlife to which he now must belong. More credit went to the hallucination theory given his late life of solitary house imprisonment in company of an evil house elf. Well, to dream of beauty surely could not hurt him because how could any harm come to someone who had already died?

Thinking of nothing in particular Sirius turned his head and tried to move. Soon he found he was too weak to stand up. Instead, he buried his right cheek in soft folds of light grey fabric of her skirts, inhaling the slightly bitter scent of something sharp and pungent, a herbal smell, mixed with a touch of freshly ground spices from distant lands. He took a mental note to ask her what it was one day. The smell reminded him vaguely of the smoking Amortentia love potion they had to brew in their sixth year in Hogwarts. _I've never met a person exhaling a remotely similar odour,_ he thought.

He noticed that the robes she wore were quite old-fashioned even for the pure blood wizarding standards. Very broad, they were hiding her figure from tip to toe as if showing her toes, covered by the robes and pointed dark slippers, might be a mortal sin she could not afford to commit.

"Are you a wizard?" the girl asked.

"I used to be. I'm not sure what I am now," the man muttered. "What is this place?" he asked, slowly rising to seated position with great effort.

Glancing sideways, he registered that the room was now rather large and a small dirty window above the painting extremely small. All kinds of obsolete antiquities lay scattered around and next to the walls. The visitor would first notice a pair of large ominous mirrors, which looked alive and stared at each other. There was also a deliciously awful candelabrum with seven dragon heads occasionally spitting some fire, various lanterns, small tools, quite some very old-fashioned kitchenware and, finally, a pile of books and rolled parchments neatly arranged in one of the corners.

"I don't know. I have lived here for a while. All I know is that I cannot leave. We must be close to the sea though. You can tell by the smell," the good-smelling woman explained what she knew about their whereabouts, sounding quite sincere.

His good mood crumbled down. The room he was in was cramped to say the best even without the two of them. Had there been a touch of green, it might have resembled his hated home, abandoned for years after his mother finally died, polluted with old age and dark magic. Fortunately, at least in some aspects this house was very different. Its luminous white-washed walls helped holding Sirius's anger at bay, but nothing could ever hold off his regrets for very long, nothing at all ever since James and Lily had been murdered.

Sirius firmly believed that he would see them, his best friends, when he died. Not another dusty, closed and mouldy room, oppressive as his parents' house or even a bit more because it was unbearably foreign and strange. A feeling of unfamiliar oddity hovered all over the place, making his heart grow cold. He had never seen a place like this and he didn't like it a single bit.

"Great", he thought aloud, "at least I'll be spending the cursed eternity with a beautiful phantom and not all alone."

"What are you talking about?" his companion made a half frightened smile.

xxxx

Ariana was uncertain about what she should think of the man in front of her. He was very tall, with overgrown hands and a lithe figure of a predator. If he were an animal, he would be a quadruped or perhaps an eagle. The man's dark curls and a set of haunted pale grey eyes reminded her of somebody but she could not pinpoint of whom. Dead eyes. Old eyes. She recalled a very old man visiting her father when she was maybe five years old. Was she imagining things? The old man had also called her beautiful several years later, the first one and the only ever to say so... after the incident...

Later on no one had called her beautiful until now. The Muggles called her the little witch as if it were the highest offence, and not a simple fact. And Gellert just coldly informed her that she had been plain, no more, no less: he was doing her a great favour by teaching her to know her body.

"Come," she addressed the stranger with bravery she didn't feel, taking his hand before he could protest, "you haven't eaten since you arrived."

She pulled him up and supported him, leading him towards her small private chamber, where she kept her now meager food supplies and cherished her greatest treasure, a window to the outside world warded by all kind of spells, but still somewhat bigger and cleaner than the very small one in the much larger room with the painting. She made him sit down and offered some food.

She started explaining in a dull tone, "You appeared next to that Muggle painting of Nativity in the bigger room a few days ago. At first I was afraid of you. See, this house is warded. I believe that my brothers did it to keep me safe. The house created an enclosure for you, a sort of cell, as soon as you arrived. I could see you through the walls, but you could not see me. I tried… I tried to do magic and bring down the wall but I couldn't, not until today. You know the rest. "

"Why did you bother?" his expression darkened.

Ariana was unable to look at him anymore.  _Why is he becoming so unreasonable now?_ "I don't know!" she nearly screamed. "As you went calmer instead of angry with the passing of time, I thought that maybe you were not that bad," she whispered suddenly afraid of what he would do to her once he gained some strength.

xxxxxxx

Sirius noticed that the girl almost equalled him in height and he was by no means a short man. She was probably the tallest girl he had ever seen.

"You can go away now if you wish," he told her stubbornly. "Return to wherever you came from. Disappear. Vanish. Did you hear me? I want to be alone," Sirius dismissed the funny girl as a pouting child, all the while helping himself to some food and already feeling much better in his skin. There were advantages of having spent twelve years in prison: he could adjust to being deprived of food and water and replenish himself with nutrients afterwards much faster than an ordinary wizard.

"Why would anyone want to be alone by choice?" she said sadly and turned away from him facing the wall.

"I hate pretence. You are not real, you see. You are just a fragment of my crazy mind. I thought that in dying there would be peace! I thought that I would see my friends…" he went on rambling, upset about the whole situation.

"What are you trying to say?" she wondered again, wriggling her hands one into another, as though she were gathering courage to look at him again.

He realized he had been shouting and continued in a calmer tone, "No use pretending, you see, I haven´t been with a girl for a while and now my mind is playing tricks on me, recreating a beautiful lady in my proximity. So, there you are, you're my fantasy and I presume that I can do whatever I like with you."

"Let's check out that assumption," Sirius continued on a wrong course, malignant and completely out of line, so preposterous that he was almost inhuman in his disdain.

He moved arrogantly closer to her. She flinched towards the wall and stumbled, going down on her knees.

Sirius towered over her as she slid down to the floor. He gently touched her face and leaned in to kiss her, without any emotion or desire, a simple experiment to perform, just like testing a new spell or a potion. Her face felt warm… _She can't be real now, how could she?_ Pig-headedness was one of the main characteristics of the Blacks, and of Sirius in particular, so he proceeded with his mindless intention to kiss her just to prove his point: she was nothing more than an illusion of his febrile mind.

A gale of energy blasted him all the way back to the nocturnal Muggle painting and firmly to the ground. The transparent wall was back except that he could still see her now. They were separated again and the girl was shaking in anger.

"Your fantasy, am I?" she yelled back for the first time in righteous anger. "You are certainly no fantasy of mine!"

Sirius laughed, this time happily and from his heart, all ambition and arrogance gone from his manners, not bothered in the least with being pushed away. "That was brilliant!" he exclaimed, meaning it.

The woman he created in his dreams was fierce and he was suddenly reluctant to further discuss the subject of his imagination with her.

"What's so funny?" she continued, enraged. "You'll see when my brothers come. They might as well kill you. I will encourage them. I should have never talked to you. You are the same like the rest of them! And if my brothers don´t kill you, their friend Gellert will!"

"Gellert, is that your boyfriend?" Sirius cackled, immediately ashamed of his croaking voice which echoed from the stone walls, so similar to deranged squeaks of cousin Bella. _I'm not like her. I'm not._

_xxxxx_

Ariana didn't answer. To tell the truth, she didn't know what the term boyfriend meant. Young proper ladies, Muggle or witches alike, had fiancées or husbands. And Gellert was neither. She had heard from friends of her mother when she was a little girl that some married ladies had lovers. But no one bothered to explain to Ariana the meaning of that. The expression remained guarded and mysterious, surrounded with secrecy and laughter of grown up witches and women.

"Gellert is my lover," she said stubbornly, not having a faintest idea what it meant, but it had a good effect on the unknown man who suddenly seemed abashed.

"I'm sorry", he said flatly. "I didn't mean to offend you."

xxxxx

Uncomfortable silence reigned in the room.

The odour of freshness evaporated leaving naked despair in Sirius's mind, always lurking from the corners to take over and pull him into the everlasting abyss of regrets. Sirius may have said he wanted to be alone but nothing was further from it than what he wished for in truth. Even if the girl was clearly overreacting over one small attempt to kiss her.

"Could you talk to me again? I will behave as if you were real, a real lady, I promise," he said, indifferently.

He staggered to the shiny transparent barrier between them and tried to grasp her hands. She was still shaking violently and her blue eyes glared with rage.

"Please," he said and looked her directly into her eyes again.

After a long time she moved one of her hands to touch one of his. As she did that, they were in the same room again, fingers intertwined.

"I am sorry," he repeated, blushing for no reason just like when he was a little boy and his mother would catch him exploring the dark objects in their family house.

She didn't speak.

"Let´s start at the beginning. My name is Sirius. Do you have a name?"

"Ariana," she whispered.

The commotion of their row stirred one of the dragon-heads of the giant seven-headed candelabrum into life. They went carefully back to the bigger window avoiding its fire spurts which flew away to scorch the frame of one of the large mirrors. For a long moment they were eating in silence.

The landscape in front of the house was desolate. The flat moors were overgrown by low grass and irregular harsh scrubs that had seen better days.

Somewhere in the distant blue horizon there ought to be the sea. Sirius was reminded of Azkaban, the closeness of the ocean could always be felt but it could never be seen. Until the day he turned into the scrawniest dog ever to walk this Earth, squeezed himself out through the bars of his cell door and swam until he almost died.

Sirius shivered lightly as he made a discovery of what the love potion meant for him. It smelled like the sea. He should have known it before. The sea had granted him exit from Azkaban. And the only thing Sirius had ever been in love with was freedom.

He unwillingly remembered waking up with his head in Ariana's lap. As far as he could remember no one had ever cuddled him. His mother was cold and distant even before she hated and disinherited him. Other women mostly wanted something from him, the good looks, the popularity, the thrill of danger in being with the outcast when he had been on the run from home, or from the Ministry, or simply a ride on his flying motorbike.

He soon found that he could not relate to any of them. Only his friends could read him as an open book, James, Remus and Peter – even Peter the traitor!

_And Harry…_

Merlin, how he hoped that Harry was alive and well!

He concluded he must have been losing his wits after all, if what he was imagining for himself in afterlife was being taken care of like a baby. Creating a rebellious huge lady that was not obeying his every whim in doing that job was another sign that something had gone seriously wrong in his head. Tall girls were never his type.

xx

Ariana may have been a freak and her magic broken but she adored reading. She suddenly remembered the old book on wizard transportation and travelling including the section marked as speculative and unverified, dealing with long distance space and time travel.

 _The painting,_ she realised. _He must have come through that painting, Merlin knows from where._

Gellert firmly believed that the painting was not magical and he was a more powerful wizard than any of her brothers. He laughed at Albus's stupid belief that the painting was special and said he gave it to their father the same way another guest could have brought flowers or a bottle of Firewhisky.

All things considered, Ariana's father, Percival, was still fond of the work of art and he was one of the world's greatest collectors of unorthodox and misused magical objects. He bid Albus leave the painting to Ariana while he was being shipped to Azkaban, calling it a whim of an old man wishing to leave his ill daughter a legacy of a kind. He must have said something else to Albus who decided for once to obey their father, but Ariana was no longer there to listen to their conversation because she passed out from crying and was given a sleeping draught to calm down.

Ariana decided to find out where Sirius had come from while he went on believing he was dead. Once reassured of his good intentions, she would tell him the truth. An inner voice whispered to her maliciously, _"But then he will dump you, silly."_

Despite great effort to ignore it, Ariana's unease grew at the thought that Sirius would surely leave her if he knew that he had that possibility. No one in their right mind would want to stay with her, would they? Gellert was an exception but she always suspected that he had never been in his right mind.

Unless she could be Sirius's fantasy, the one he had been so thrilled to see when he woke up. Gathering all her courage and fighting her usual revulsion to human touch, she approached the man seated on the floor from his back and pulled him towards her with both arms, gently laying his head in her lap again. She avoided another spurt of dragon fire as she walked, happy about the damage to the second gruesome mirror; she would've gladly disposed of if only it wasn't impossible to destroy most magical objects she inherited.

xx

Sirius was taken by surprise, arms and neck stiff from sitting on the floor. Relaxing on her skirts for the second time that day he stretched his body on the flat surface, feeling ready to drowse after his first meal in seven days.

And for the first time in fourteen years Sirius found he could just let go. For the shortest of moments he forgot about James and Lily, his guilt and his regrets. He forgot the fight against Voldemort and he nearly forgot about Harry.

He looked into the pair of vivid blue eyes twinkling above him and smiled.

xx

Ariana's lips curved in a mischievous grin, happy about her deception. No one had ever told her how similar she was in character to her brother Albus. If someone had and if she could command her magic, they would have been severely hexed because Ariana was convinced that she was a mirrored image of her beloved brother Aberforth, a much better man and wizard in her opinion. Her mind feverishly jumped forward contemplating the need for a good plan to hide Sirius once Gellert would eventually return to bring her new supplies and pester her with his offers of marriage.

Wishing to take the experiment one step further, she was at first very embarrassed at her thoughts. She wondered if that was how Gellert felt about her, in his ever present desire to oversee her every move.

"Let's get some sleep", she said, blushing furiously, a most improper phrase for a young lady from a respectable wizarding family, while helping Sirius on his feet and leading him towards a pile of textiles a bit further on the floor which was her makeshift bed, since the real bed gave her creeps and bad memories. She avoided sleeping in it whenever she was alone.

For Ariana was not a lady. She was ruined, first by three young Muggle boys and then by Gellert. No one would ever ask for her hand in marriage. Obviously, Gellert still wanted to marry her, but she suspected he wanted it for a reason not related to her person at all, most likely a sinister reason she preferred not to know anything about.

Ariana suddenly realised that she would only let that marriage happen over her dead body.

She almost pushed a weakened Sirius into the pile noticing his curious look towards her. Feeding her courage from his looks she went to the most distant corner of the room and almost got burned by another burst of dragon fire while changing from her daytime robes into a nightgown in one of the darkest corners, behind a box with jewels and a pile of kitchenware. The gown was a lighter shade of grey than her robes, embroidered with a pattern of miniature silver moons. The soft, thin fabric fell down hiding her entire body once more and long wide sleeves fluttered as she walked, rustling like leaves in the autumn wind. Gracious toes were protruding at the bottom revealing the tiniest portion of two thin bare feet.

She slowly returned to Sirius and lay down next to him, leaving an armful of space between them.

Then she waited, paralysed, asphyxiated, afraid, expecting him to start behaving like those Muggles, or like Gellert did, offering herself for whatever came.

Her fear was primeval.

It burned and it stung like a sharp blade stuck immobile inside her throat, able to cut her lifeline in every second. She wanted to throw up, but she could not. Breathing was increasingly difficult.

Her mind dwelt frantically on how it was going to be with him, the stranger. Would he be gentle as Gellert in his better days? Would he beat her up first like the Muggles did?

All of a sudden she wished she truly was a fairy from her childhood stories. For the fairies could make the hero move the mountains for them and liberate them from their enemies. Ariana knew little and every day less of the human society, growing up secluded for most of her life, but she has learned way too much about enchanted dungeons for body and mind. One could never break free alone. Not from Gellert in any case.

She stiffened again and gasped for air, waiting for the inevitable move of the man lying peacefully next to her.

Sirius just yawned and pulled her in a clumsy brotherly hug, keeping a bit of a distance between them. He relaxed, occasionally patting her shoulders.

She felt the man's breathing slowing down. Before she knew it, they both fell asleep.

The room was filled with night whispers, obsessive and wild. Shapeless beings peered at the sleeping couple from the depths of the painting framed by a pointed arch, wondering who had woken them up from a thousand years long sleep and why.


	4. Green Fields of the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Snape is mocked by the unusual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.

Professor Snape's investigation of the Veil of Death reached a dead end. He would rarely admit that he could not move any further without assistance but that was the unadorned truth. It was almost the end of the school year. He knew for a while that some time soon he would have to commit an atrocity promised to an old friend, following an act of emotional extortion that even Molly Weasley would have been ashamed of. After the conversation with Albus, Severus felt as if both of them deserved to wear one of the infamous Weasley jumpers in kitschy family style colours and perhaps a party hat marking them as worse dunderheads than even the most stupid among the students.

There was also a tiny issue of the Unbreakable Vow Severus had sworn meaning his death if he failed. He very much wanted to complete his secret personal project of retrieving Sirius Black from the Veil, if that was possible at all, prior to his suicidal mission of killing Dumbledore for the greater good.

Almost a full year of brooding brought him no closer to the clue except that he was fairly certain that the Veil was rather a time-travel than a space-travel instrument. And wherever Sirius was, blood magic was referred to as a likely clue towards reversal of such spells with the intention to save persons lost in deep inaccessible spaces governed by the darkest magic. Severus devised a complex incantation and a special potion to bring Sirius back. But in order to succeed, he needed a close living relative, a parent or a sibling, willing to project the essence of their living soul onto the surface of the Veil in the middle of the spell  and call Sirius back. There was no likely candidate to do this as both Sirius's parents and his only brother had died.

Obviously, the procedure, if discovered, would be deemed highly illegal by the Ministry and ensure the ticket to Azkaban. Severus snorted knowing that his other master the Dark Lord controlled Azkaban anyway so it did not matter too much. The times were favouring experimenting with illegal magic or creating new one. And the best chance Severus had to bring Sirius back would be on the anniversary of his death, coming in two weeks. Severus considered asking Sirius's cousin Andromeda, or even her daughter Nymphadora for help, but the relation was not close enough.

Consulting Hogwarts yearbooks on the Peverell family gave no spectacular results either. The family seemed to have liked the name Ignotus which appeared in every generation. The last Ignotus effectively graduated from Hogwarts in 1942 and was by all standards a completely non-remarkable student, not quite a disaster like Neville Longbottom, but a dull mediocre individual who did nothing noteworthy in his seven years at school. His marks were average and he didn't even serve a detention in all that time. Perhaps this last detail should have raised Snape's interest as almost no student managed to graduate from Hogwarts without serving at least one detention. But everything else about Ignotus Peverell was so dull that he just disregarded it and closed the dusty yearbook again with a reckless feeling of lack of fulfilment, and an almost certainty that something was escaping his shrewdness when it came to the Peverells, despite all his efforts to uncover the truth.

One morning when he returned to the dungeons after another sleepless night trying to find something of interest concerning Ignotus Peverell in the library, he found an owl from Dumbledore carrying a piece of blackened parchment saying, _In two weeks._

The time had come.

Severus was overtaken by a strong desire to break all his jars and vials with expensive and rare potions and potion ingredients the Muggle way and to cause havoc in his perfectly ordered working space.

Before he could give in to these fairly basic urges caused by long term frustration, his legs decided to carry him out of the castle to the grounds of Hogwarts.

A crack of Apparating resounded in a street full of trees leading in the direction of the Ministry of Magic. It was very early in the morning. The scent of thousands tender white blossoms in the trees, which bathed in the bright daylight of one of the first summer days, felt profoundly disturbing.

Severus Snape couldn't explain, not even to himself, why he decided to take a walk to the strange new shop in the immediate vicinity of the Ministry on a warm day. He was never one for sunlight and he enjoyed the damp darkness of his dungeons where he spent most of the time as a teacher. They were generally safe. And he would be left in the privacy of his musings, working hard at the same time on potions for school and for the Dark Lord, developing the latest strategies for defeating either the Light side or the Dark side in the ongoing war, depending on who ordered his services at a given moment.

But on that particular day even Snape needed warmth and careless feeling of being alive more than ever. There was very little time of relative freedom left before going into hiding and before all people he knew and very few people he respected would start loathing him much more than usual.

The known feeling that the shop was new and that it only appeared in London a year ago filled up his mind as he was approaching and trying to control such thoughts.

Since last year it has been well established that the shop had stood there forever. As far as he knew Severus was the only wizard still haunted by the suspicion concerning the veracity of that fact. The paranoia of his spy profession must have messed with his perception.

It was not only that the shop had always been there, but it had recently become a place of refuge and healing for hurt Death Eaters in exchange for generous rewards. The healing spells were at a far more advanced level than those used by the staff of St Mungos hospital for magical illnesses and no questions were asked regarding the nature and the origin of injuries.

The Dark Lord intended to kill the shop-owner and his daughter as soon as the war was over. The rumour in Voldemort's inner circle had it that Peverell the pure-blood fathered a Squib daughter on an unsuspecting Muggle woman. Severus could not say what he loathed more, the fact that the Peverells made a living by helping Death Eaters recover and attack more innocent victims, or the fact that they were blind and could not see what the Dark Lord had in stock for them as a payback for their services.

Snape didn't go to see the Peverells since the first time. There were better suppliers of potions ingredients in Diagon Alley who didn't help Death Eaters, or stir unwanted sensations of _déjà vu_ of any kind.

But that morning was different. There were precious few days left for Snape to satisfy his gnawing curiosity.

He noticed Val, perched on the window sill, her hair in a tight bun, her robes plain black and perfectly straight. Her eyes were closed: she seemed to be absorbed in her thoughts and thoroughly enjoying the sun. She stirred as Severus approached.

"Good morning, professor, what can I do for you? You haven't stopped by for a while!" she said in a rather serious demeanour, in stark contrast with playful defiance he remembered from the time when they met.

"It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" he replied stiffly, feeling silly and regretting he was there.

"I could not imagine that what brings you here is the beauty of the morning," she replied, coming towards the door and letting him in, still absorbed in her thoughts whatever they were.

He was all of a sudden compelled to access her mind through Legilimency; not to read her thoughts, no, but to get a glimpse of her true character which eluded him. As soon as he cast Legilimens in his mind, wand hidden in his robes, and pointed in her direction, the image of green meadows on a sunny day invaded his senses, the smell of flowers and freshly mowed grass after the rain. He could inhale, touch and taste the sensation. He felt like a man dying to whom someone administered the elixir of life.

"This is not a very polite thing to do, Mr Snape," Val looked right through him as if he was made of water, undeterred by his intrusion, inside her shop filled with darkness, different than the bright light outside and the imaginary landscape as day and night.

"Stop it!" she barked.

Severus remained impassive as if he hadn't been performing a highly illegal curse on the unwilling individual. Val didn't seem to be physically hurt by his intrusion and he just couldn't help himself taking what little joy he could get,  before a dreadful phase in his life leading to his inevitable messy death would begin. He stared nastily at Val and showed no sign of weakness, no hint of either excusing himself or leaving. He took a step forward in her mind and walked on a meadow when his reason, drugged for several minutes, kicked in again and sounded an alarm.

It was not possible to create such an elaborate landscape as a defensive Occlumency shield. So what was he seeing? Her memories? The landscape was too perfect to be a memory of any real plot of land as far as he could tell. Her daydream? Snape was more bewildered than ever. A butterfly landed on his hand and the most natural thing to do was to give in to the overwhelming beauty, whatever its origin, and take a deep breath.

A pair of arrogant, cold black eyes pierced Val as if mental aggression towards her was Snape's acquired right, violating her private space to secure a healing for his soul, long time due and never received. Val shrugged but she didn't break the eye contact. Severus's vision of her mind slowly darkened and showed a blurry room with beds, some of them occupied, and walls lined with shelves full of books, large stock of potions, neatly stored ingredients of all kinds and magical healing equipment.

"You are the one running the hospital for Death Eaters that the Dark Lord's followers have become so fond of and not your father?" Severus blurted in disbelief, still not breaking the eye contact.

"Yes. Someone has to. It's right here in the back. Do you wish to see it? You were once here as well when you were injured. Just that you were too unconscious to notice. The Dark Lord was displeased with the continued failures of someone called Draco and punished you instead. It took me three days to patch you. Afterwards we shipped you to Hogwarts tied to a broom. I take note that you survived. How convenient," Val spoke as if she was convinced that Professor Snape would finally stop looking at her, seeing how she personally cured some of the most evil wizards in existence, and hid them from the ever less watchful eyes of the Ministry of Magic right below their feet.

"I guess a thank you would be in order then," Severus grinned like an idiot maintaining the eye contact, "from a fellow Death Eater."

Before she knew he grabbed her, grasped her left forearm and pulled up the sleeve revealing unblemished tender skin, damaged only with some tiny traces that could have been caused by the regular exercise of a magical healer profession or negligent daily care of some larger magical creature. Snape wondered if she shared Hagrid's taste for pets as he mustered his most murderous tone and said: "Except that you are not one. Should I inform the Dark Lord of his… omission?"

Slowly, the dark mark on her forearm formed and danced before his eyes, as real as his own, always hidden deep under many layers of thick black robes as if covering the accursed imprint could make Snape forget his greatest mistake. Her mark was at once as real as the green land where he yearned to stay only a little bit longer, before his vision returned to the usual darkness of his own mind.

"Am I not?" she taunted him. "Is that the best you've got? Threatening me?"

Severus let her go with a feeling of _déjà vu_ at her last sentence and the defiant look she gave him. He could swear that she had no Dark Mark. Yet now the Mark was there and so was the idea in his mind that the Dark Mark had always been there, just like the shop they were standing in must have always been in London. Except that Snape could not believe it, any of it. It was all plain wrong.

Still not breaking the eye contact he shuddered and admitted inwardly to himself that he had been defeated. She could not, she would not help him. It was all an illusion. And he didn't want to spend his last free days chasing after dreams of any kind.

As soon as he thought all that, the image projected from her mind returned to the beautiful landscape which filled his heart with peace.

Severus could swear it was she intruding his consciousness now and not the other way around. Yet she didn't cast a Legilimens spell nor any other spell Snape had known. It felt like she had no magic, like she was indeed a benign Squib with peculiar imagination. His black eyes widened in surprise and for a brief second when he was not protecting his thoughts from others Val could read in his eyes without using any magic, plain as the day, the depth of his despair.

There was only one thing left to say. Severus used the word scarcely and if he did, he almost never meant it.

"Thank you," he said in a completely changed sincere voice, after what seemed like long hours of contemplation, when he finally let his eyes drop, standing up to leave the shop.

"Wait!" she called after him. "I know what you are up to. And you must suspect that my father and I are up to the same. You're still trying to bring Sirius Black back from the Veil of Death, aren't you? My father and I have been thinking about the solution but he couldn't devise the proper incantation or establish the best timing to give it a try. Maybe we have a chance if we work together."

When Severus looked at her again, not believing his ears, Val swayed on her feet, suddenly looking old and frail as if she was twenty years older than he. The lines around her eyes and on her forehead deepened and her skin suddenly gained an olive hue. But she seemed sincere and content, radiating a contagiously positive mood he hadn't seen in her before.

"Wait," she repeated supporting herself on the walls as she scurried to the back room from where she soon returned with a large manuscript entitled: _"Illegal and Untested Transportation Devices for Witch and Wizard, Bouncing Through Space and Time: Enchanted Animals, Crystal Time Bubbles, Veils of Death and many more."_

Dusk coloured the air outside and the shop sank further into almost intimate darkness. Severus indifferently watched the spiders, patiently weaving their nets in the far corners, as Val sat down and continued babbling in an excited voice.

"It's an incomplete copy my father made long time ago from a scroll lost to the wizarding world. He found it in the house of one of his schoolmates, he never wanted to admit which one," Val commented as she turned the page dedicated to " _Veils of Death_ " and read: " _In order to forcefully call back a traveller, a parent or a sibling has to face the Veil, on the correct date, and sing the incantation describing the key elements in the traveller's life._ How far did you go with the incantation?"

"I am certainly no poet, Mrs Peverell, however, I was vaguely acquainted with Black and I dared put on paper a few statements reflecting the key elements in his life. I assume that the correct timing would be the anniversary of his death, which is in two weeks," Severus's voice returned to being nasty and low, but inwardly he couldn't believe he was actually sharing all that information with another human being. Most of them were not worthy of their existence, according to Snape's scale of values in any case.

"Wonderful!" she was beaming. "We'll go and get him!" She giggled as most witches did in the presence of Black and Snape was suddenly so glad to disappoint her. "Unfortunately, Mrs Peverell, the spell requires the support of old blood magic to make it work and even your book confirms my initial assumption that the blood has to come from a close relation. Sirius's parents and brother are all dead and I don't think that the blood of his cousins comes close enough."

Val continued speaking, not disappointed at all and overly enthusiastic, "My father is a master in charms. One of the best in England. I could let you read one of his volumes on blood magic, he theorised that the impact of the blood of close kin can be reconstructed if one can retrieve some of the victim's possessions. It's a method frequently used in healing. We need something Sirius touched and used himself, even if it was a lifetime ago. But your incantation has more chance to work than any we would have come up with as neither my father nor I have ever met Sirius before. Another element we couldn't figure was that the anniversary of the disappearance was the key, we were operating on the basis that one of the magical days in the year would suffice, such as the Halloween or Muggle Christmas."

"That is a possibility, but the illegal volume on reversal of dark spells that I happen to possess is very clear that the best guarantee for the reversal would be if the same sorcerer on the same date attempted to reverse the effects while endowing his wand with some blood from the victim," Severus continued calmly as if he was teaching a bunch of first years how to brew a most uninteresting potion.

"But then we also need the person who cast the spell throwing Sirius into the Veil, forgive me, but wasn't that…" Val went pale as a corpse.

"Bellatrix Lestrange. The Dark Lord's right arm. And his special… friend," Severus sneered thinking of the unhealthy relationship the two were having. It was one of those things that he absolutely didn't want to know any details about, yet couldn't help but notice Bellatrix's badly hidden impulses to touch their Master, possibly the only creature on Earth uglier and more repulsive than Severus Snape.

Val paced around the room like a beast in cage and counted the days. Two weeks was very little time to prepare the ritual to save Sirius. Severus got lost in dark thoughts about being on the run soon, with no easy access to the Ministry or to the Veil.

"I will help you, Mr Snape, for the blood magic part, but you have to help me first with something entirely different. I need a contact of a person able to handle dragons, who would be willing to come and work with me this summer. I will not answer why I need such a person so don't bother to ask," Val said, pulling Snape out from the abyss of his thoughts. "Furthermore, the person should preferably not be a Death Eater."

Snape was caught by surprise so he obeyed without thinking, took out his wand, conjured a Patronus and whispered to it, "Go to Charlie Weasley visiting his parents in the Burrow. Tell him to visit Mrs Val Peverell at Peverell&Son in London as soon as possible on an urgent Order business." A gracious silvery doe pranced away into the street among the trees, chasing a few bees as it went.

"I'm glad that you asked today", said Snape, "as in a few days I might not be able to help you".

"What do you mean?" Val asked.

Severus just stared through her without blinking as if he were made of solid rock. Seeing that she wouldn't be getting any answers either, Val continued with the business at hand.

"If we cannot get Mrs Lestrange to cooperate in a given time we could give it a try without her but we absolutely have to find some possessions of the victim to be able to proceed," Val said decisively closing the dusty tome in front of them with a clang that made two bats hanging asleep from the wooden carvings under the ceiling wake up for the night and nervously flutter their wings.

"Indeed. I could come and see you tomorrow night then," Severus said in his most neutral tone. "Bellatrix might visit with me as well and then we shall see. If I may inquire…" Severus paused significantly and fixated Val again with his black piercing eyes, the way he kept on doing since their peculiar Legilimency encounter had started.

"Go ahead," said Val.

"Why do you want to help Sirius Black?"

"Oh, clearly, I'm madly in love with him!"

Severus chuckled at the irony of her statement, nevertheless harbouring the suspicion that she must have fancied Black in the past or read too much wizarding tabloids in general if she was willing to go that far to help him without knowing anything about the man. The rational part of Snape knocked at the back door of his mind reminding him that this didn't explain why her father would want to help Sirius, on the contrary, fathers of Sirius's short-lived would-be girlfriends mostly wanted to hex him when they were all teenagers.

Thinking of it in detail, Black never actually had that many girlfriends, there must have been one or two as far as Severus recalled. His focus lay elsewhere, in his empty-headed friends and stupid enjoyment in being a blood-traitor, despising publicly the ways of his family.

Severus for his part tried to date a few Muggle girls over the years since Lily died but his relationships never went on for very long. Snape cared for them, in his way, but he never managed to admit to any of those girls the basic fact that he was a wizard, or show his real poisonous nature for which he was notorious in Hogwarts. It was a more benevolent and far less dangerous version of Snape that occasionally went out with girls but this only aggravated the condition that real Snape never satisfied fully any of his emotional urges or showed all of his nature to anyone, the only possible exception for the latter part being maybe Albus Dumbledore, his only friend, _and_ the person he was about to murder in cold blood.

And dating witches was not an option: Severus really didn't like younger ones and all those roughly his age saw him primarily as Snivellus, the horrible greasy git. Fortunately, Muggle girls frequently found his robes and even his hair different in a positive sense and kind of cool. The unsuccessful attempts at dating provided at least some distraction in his state of continuous frustration.

"See you tomorrow then, Severus," Val interrupted his chain of thoughts, his name an afterthought on her tongue as last traces of giddiness faded from her voice.

Severus reacted as one shot in the leg at her use of his first name. He abruptly stood up and stumbled out without a word, before he could succumb again to an overwhelming yearning to invade her privacy without permission, and become lost forever...

In the green fields of her mind.


	5. Personalised Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius begins to enjoy being dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Harry Potter.

Ariana and Sirius woke up huddled together, much closer than they were when they fell asleep. The first rays of winter sun crept through the large window in Ariana's improvised living quarters, drawing a bright luminous trail all the way to the two human forms struggling against drowsiness on a heap of disparate textiles, as their eyes started to hurt from too much light.

The morning chased the phantoms of the night and the strange whispers from the Veil. The inhospitable rooms of the small house looked almost pleasant and scattered magical objects tame: the seven dragons' heads on the candelabrum were snoring and two awful old fashioned mirrors played a game of riddles with each other.

With the voices from the other side silenced, Sirius and Ariana were abandoned to their fate. They could not know it but the Veil was a one-way travelling ticket with no return and its temporary and fragile beneficial effects could not be made permanent according to the wisest of the wizards and the greatest of the warlocks who have studied it and recorded its properties. Scrolls and scrolls of parchment were filled, explaining how the wizard who was to understand the mystery of the Veil and bend it to his will had not yet been born.

The Veil was a delayed but not less certain sentence to death.

Ariana was trying to open her eyes thinking that she should make some curtains before summer. _White and yellow would do_ , she thought, _the colours of the sunlight._ Feeling very warm and at ease, she remembered the day before and realised that a very pale skinny man was holding her. She was suddenly aware that he might be taller than her, which was truly rare. Most men she knew, including Gellert, were at least a little bit shorter. She immediately went limp before turning completely stiff and very uncomfortable in his arms. Her gorge burned with fear again and she could not move.

Closing her eyes to ignore the circumstances, she forced herself to wriggle out of the makeshift bed, shivering, moving as far away as possible from the unwanted presence of the man.

Sirius.

She should remember his name. Her mind slowly cleared up as she realised he had not hurt her in any way. _Not yet_ , the threatening voice said in her head, _but he probably will. They are all the same,_ the voice whispered, _get rid of him before he hurts you._

But the light of the morning was upon her and no harm could surely come to her in the golden warmth of the sun. All of a sudden she knew who Sirius reminded her of.

Ariana exclaimed without any sense for politeness or tact, "Are you related to Phineas Nigellus Black?"

Sirius stirred awake and stretched his rather long arms peacefully before answering her question in a slow motion, as one happy to do nothing and just stay where he was, perfectly at ease in his new surroundings, as if the rough textiles were the most luxurious bed he had ever slept in.

"You mean my great-great-grandfather and the most hated Headmaster of Hogwarts? How do you know about him? He died a long time ago," answered Sirius.

Ariana lied in the most convincing way, surprising herself with yet another new ability: "I must have seen his photograph in a book. Perhaps in Hogwarts, a History. I am very fond of reading. It's my favourite pastime."

The truth was that, when she was about five years old, an impressive looking elderly man with long raven hair visited her father introducing himself as Phineas Nigellus Black. He brought with him his granddaughter Norma. Ariana and Norma played in the garden, and Ariana marvelled at having a friend while Phineas and dad had long discussions about a mirror dad was studying at the time, showing the person looking into it their greatest desires.

Two years later, after the Muggles had already attacked Ariana, she and dad met Phineas and Norma again on a tea party at Malfoy Manor. Dad hated visiting the Malfoys but he considered it a necessary evil from time to time. She ran to play with Norma as usual only to be greeted by the cold look of disdain, typical of Blacks, her father would explain to her later on.

Lost in the corridors she heard Norma explaining to one of the Veela looking beautiful Malfoy cousins: "Imagine, she is ruined. No one will ever ask for her hand in marriage. And it was done by Mudbloods… Her magic is broken so she will not even get her Hogwarts letter…" The girls were giggling as if they were discussing some very exciting piece of good news or latest fashion for well-born witches.

Ariana ran to find her father and she never went to any party again. She made all mirrors in the Manor burst into pieces as she was trying to find her way out, having recourse to accidental magic in her desperate attempt to escape the maze of the Malfoy's ancestral domain. Digging deeper in the painful memory, she remembered a sad pale face of old Phineas Nigellus seeing them off and excusing himself formally to her father for Norma's behaviour. _Blind,_ she thought. _He was blind._

Soon thereafter dad went after the Muggles to defend her lost honour and Ariana could have done nothing to prevent him. The horrific torture of that memory overtook her and she leaned on the wall to suppress it, giving Sirius a crazed look with glassy eyes while her hands were searching nervously the wall for a point of anchor against falling. She was shaking and looking at Sirius in open dislike, bothered by his presence.

When the pain of the memory was finally over, she was struck by the realization that if Phineas Nigellus was the great-great-grandfather of the man she had just spent the night with, then she could be Sirius's grandmother at least.

Sirius was from the future.

Ariana gave Sirius a look of utter shock and disbelief followed by a shrieking gasp.

"Right, I've frequently been told that I looked like a mass murderer, but no one has ever looked at me before as if I was so closely related to the giant squid," Sirius remarked cynically.

She surprised him by a soft laugh as if his words had woken her up from a trance, and the sound of her laugh in turn eased his heart. Making easy, soft steps all around the cramped quarters, she prepared them both a modest breakfast in no time.

The sun was much higher in the sky when they finished eating because Ariana made Sirius talk about himself. He would not say much except that all there was to know was that he died protecting his godson Harry Potter from some dangerous people called the Death Eaters who were working for a Dark Lord called Voldemort. She took good mental note of all those names and designations, feeling they were somehow important to him in the greater scheme of things and perhaps to her as well.

When he asked about her life, Ariana explained how she had an unfortunate accident as a child which damaged her ability to use magic. Without outwardly lying, she hinted that she died in an explosion she caused. Imagining the horrible incident with her mother to make her fabrication sound more credible, she had to concentrate real hard not to relive again any of her traumas in great detail, afraid of what her bursts of uncontrolled magic could do. Looking at one of the two awful magic mirrors winning the game of riddles, and boosting about it to another, helped her stay focused and wall off the undesirable part of her soul, the one that had suffered beyond endurance.

Cold hands on her body, cold murmurs in her ears. There were waves of purple haze around her eyebrows during every Gellert's visit. His warm breath profaned her chest, covering it with malignant influence. Nothing was ever physically visible but it felt as if she had been showered in gore.

She could not tell Sirius what the Muggles and Gellert did to her. She could never speak to anybody about that. Her heart nearly stopped, waiting for his reaction when she confessed that she was magically disabled.

Sirius just chuckled softly. "Right! Damaged, you say, right? You know, since we are stuck together, I sort of like that you're a bit mad. They always say insanity runs deep in my biological family. We can pretend we're family too. What do you say?"

She never answered but the pretence went on much better than any of them expected. They developed a routine of an old married couple too well acquainted with each other to feel any passion. They were doing the same things every day, discussing always different innocuous details from their past lives. They discovered they were both smart and that Sirius was also fond of reading even if he would never admit that out loud in so many words. She learned he hated the dark arts and he understood that she was naturally curious about them and the force they represented. For some reason, he couldn't resent her curiosity where once he despised it in his own brother Regulus, only to later regret pushing him away, every single day since his brother's untimely disappearance without trace when Sirius was eighteen and Regulus sixteen years old.

Ariana and Sirius never came close to each other since that first night despite sharing the same bed, albeit always on a safe distance, respecting the boundary they established without ever discussing the need for it.

Gellert was nowhere to be seen, which was good, so Ariana didn't have to think of a way to hide Sirius, and bad because now there were two of them and they were running out of food. She would stay awake at night with obsolete wizarding cooking books. Very soon she discovered she could wandlessly perform basic charms to improve and extend their food supplies. She had never been able to do that before. She was so busy doing that and hiding what she was doing from Sirius that she didn't give much thought to this in reality extraordinary phenomenon for a witch proclaimed to be magically incapacitated by the greatest healers of her time.

After a week of sleepless nights and almost no food left to transfigure magically, it occurred to her that maybe Sirius could actually walk out of the house and bring them some food as the place was never warded against him. But would he ever return to her in that case? Not wishing to dwell on the subject, she curled up on her side of the bed and waited, sleepless, for another morning, thinking about her past and uncertain future.

Ariana had already found subtle ways to question Sirius about important wizarding figures, claiming she never went to school, thus learning a lot of what her brother Albus would do in the future, as a leader of the efforts to defeat Voldemort. _Such a pompous name_ , she thought. She knew that Albus was very powerful and it gladdened her heart that he did some good in the world. To her great sadness, it seemed that Sirius had never met Aberforth and couldn't tell her anything about her favourite brother.

It was another beautiful morning when winter slowly melted into spring. Nevertheless, Ariana felt on the edge when Sirius finally woke up. There was no food left for breakfast, real or magically enhanced. She had to tell him that perhaps he could leave the house to find sustenance and then she would wait for Gellert, or for her death, whatever came first, alone.

Treading on very dangerous ground, she asked the most important question she wanted to learn about the future before he left. She had never dared ask it before:

"I think that I've also read that before the war against Voldemort…" she noticed Sirius nodding towards her with respect when she pronounced the presumptuous name without flinching, "…Dumbledore had something to do with someone called Grindelwald… if I'm correct... I mean… I might be wrong…"

Sirius looked at her with new found pity as if she was much dumber than he thought. Then he proceeded with determined calm as if he were giving a very basic history lesson to a small child: "Haven't your parents ever bought you Chocolate Frog Cards? Albus Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard of our time and the only one Voldemort is afraid of because Dumbledore defeated the previous Dark Lord Grindelwald in a duel in 1945."

It took all of Ariana's self-control not to start screaming from joy that Albus actually did something truly righteous in his life and saw Gellert for what he was, a pig, except that pigs should get seriously offended by the comparison.

At that point Sirius started observing her in amazement and said, "Your eyes are alive now. They flash like lightning. I always try to say things that make them look like that."

"I didn't expect to have any success with basic history lessons though," he beamed at her as Gellert never did.

"Why do you care if I feel alive or not?" she asked, softly.

Sirius avoided answering the question. Instead he turned very active and muttered something that dead or not, he could try doing some magic just to practice and kill some time and explore the possibilities... if he only had his wand...

Ariana swallowed and dragged out a long piece of wood from one of the many pockets of her inner robes.

"I'm sorry!" she stuttered. "I took it from you before you woke up. I forgot I had it, honestly!"

And she truly did forget – the necessary act of self-preservation was hidden in the endless dark pit of her soul. She wondered how many other memories lay there never to be brought forth.

Sirius gave a cry of joy, not questioning her actions at all. In the next few hours, he managed to transfigure the back room of the house they never used because it was windowless to look like an enclosed courtyard under the open sky, with a small pool and fountain in the middle. He even transformed two old paintings of flowers in living plants in red clay pots, but he didn't manage to exit the house, despite insistently prodding the walls both physically and with spells, as if he wished to run away from Ariana as soon as possible, or so she told herself.

 _So much for getting us food_ , Ariana thought.

After a few hours of frantic activity and totally childlike behaviour, Sirius turned towards her and handed her back his wand!

"One more try!" said Sirius and seconds later there stood a large black dog glaring at her.

Ariana would have screamed if she didn't notice that the pale gleaming eyes of the animal were so similar to the eyes of the man who altered her life. The dog started wiggling his tail playfully.

"This is your Animagus form then?" Ariana inquired, backtracking nervously when the dog approached her and nuzzled the border of her skirts. "Do you have a name?"

A man squatted in front of her and Ariana's unease diminished, four large paw prints clearly visible behind him on the stretch where he walked as a dog. "Well, that was Padfoot, if you really have to know," Sirius explained cordially, "or Snuffles if you prefer that name. He's a really sweet dog, as long as he doesn't get any flies."

Ariana laughed and said without thinking, "Try getting out of the house as Padfoot. Maybe you could find us something to eat."

 _Good Merlin!_ She had said it. And he would leave. It was the most logical alternative.

"Your wish is my command," Sirius smirked and saluted her as if she were an army general, immediately losing his human shape.

The dog barked obediently, ran to the door and left passing Gellert's protective wards as if they were not in place!

 _He will not come back,_ Ariana thought for the rest of the day rearranging her father's broken treasure collection from one room to another and watching the conjured fountain with tears in her eyes. Deep in the night she curled up alone on her bed of rags.

She woke to the smell of tea and bacon and eggs. A handsome dark-haired man in clean black robes was getting plates ready and trying very hard not to make any noise. His new attire was more similar to the gentlemanly fashion she was used to see than the worn once fancy blazer he arrived in from the future.

"Ugh, you're awake a moment too early. I wanted to surprise you," Sirius complained.

"Well, it was the smell– " Ariana said and was immediately interrupted.

"Are you an Animagus yourself? Heightened sense of smell…"

"No. I told you once that there was nothing special about me," she lied in a boring voice. Many things about Ariana could be considered different in the very least, or simply abnormal, as decent society chose to label her unstable condition.

 _I lied again_ , she thought. Magic or no, she could sense him in the house, just like she could have smelled her brothers if they ever bothered to visit her. And Gellert, Gellert she could feel from even greater distance as soon as he thought of visiting her.

She laughed at a very confused Sirius.

"You're allergic to eggs?" he asked, uncertain.

But Ariana was already helping him put food on the table and they soon had the tastiest and the longest breakfast ever.

A few mornings later, as they shared another copious meal Sirius had provided, Ariana realised that there was one topic about which he never talked about and that was his family. At first she was pleased as it saved her some explanations about her own but on that particular morning she needed to learn more. She was sure that he was withholding something important from her.

"What was your mother like?" she asked leaning towards him over empty plates.

"Dear old mother was the pure-blooded maniac like the rest of my family. All obsessed with helping Voldemort win the war. My own cousin killed me if I haven't mentioned that before," Sirius explained matter-of-factly, making the story sound much sicker than if he was yelling or using a more emotional tone.

"And the worst thing of all is that I would have killed my cousin that day if she didn't get to me first. I hated her that much," Sirius spoke and turned his back to Ariana. "I would've become a killer like any of them. My _beloved_ family."

The house went deadly quiet as a tomb and all life seemed to have abandoned it.

"My family started well," Ariana felt obliged to volunteer some information to break the disturbing silence between them, "but in the end we were driven very far apart from each other. And the worst thing of all is that there is no Dark Lord we can blame for that. Only ourselves."

Sirius felt as if he had been overrun by his own flying motorbike in full speed. An entirely new emotion rose high above his constant inner turmoil of regrets for things lost, a sublimation of feeling that was devouring him softly from within every day since she had asked him why he cared if she felt alive. His insides began to boil and demand him to do something rash again. Something he would deplore. To break the ugly mirrors with his bare fists and squash all seven dragon heads of the nasty candle holder to the wall would have been a good start.

Instead he just stood tall and stared at Ariana, yearning for something he did not know how to ask for, unable to utter a sensible word.

She wished he would look at her like that forever, as if she was whole and unblemished, and as if her very presence was enough to ease his pain.

That night they hugged each other tightly when they went to bed as if that was the most natural thing to do.


	6. The Healing Potion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where magical properties of Muggle whisky are revealed for the very first time

The last rays of the afternoon sun permeated the familiar herbal shop of the Peverell family, covering the dusty shelves with otherworldly glow. A young red-haired man stumbled in, nearly toppling over a jar of dragon heart strings, put on display next to the counter.

Val welcomed the sturdy young man who presented himself as Charlie Weasley, working with dragons in Romania. Then she went on explaining what she wanted without much of an introduction.

"Mr Weasley, thank you for coming on such a short notice. My father and I would have a need for your services. What I'm about to show you is somewhat irregular and I'll have to ask you for your utmost discretion."

Charlie coughed, embarrassed, he had spent too much time in a dragon reserve and was never one for socially required politeness: "I am somewhat surprised to be summoned here as I have heard strange rumours concerning what goes on in this place."

"What precisely did you hear, Mr Weasley?" Val asked, amused.

Charlie blushed but found the nerve to speak up his mind, "Well, people talk that Death Eaters are being healed in this place in exchange for a good reward, no questions asked. I would call that a somewhat irregular situation. I'm telling you this so directly only because my family and I put trust in Professor Snape who asked me to come."

"Oh, I see. That may well be. It may even be that the Death Eaters are healed here without any reward, how do you feel about that?"

"I should better leave," Charlie stood up when a short, chubby wizard walked into the room, obstructed his way out and shook his hand vigorously.

"Good afternoon, young man. I couldn't help overhearing your discussion with my daughter here. Look at you! I don't even have to ask who you are. Do give your father Arthur Weasley my regards when you see him. I've known him for many years, since Godric's Hollow. And I can assure you that while we do heal Death Eaters because we consider them to be only wizards after all, strayed, yes, but wizards, if you know what I mean, so, while we do heal them as well, I mean, we do not share their views of the world order. Would you at least consider my daughter's proposition before you pass the final judgement?" The old man tapped Charlie heartily on his back like a long lost son. His touch felt eerie, a child's touch, way too gentle for his ebullient behaviour and strong stature.

"If you lived in Godric's Hollow than you must have known the Potters?" Charlie inquired cautiously.

"Good old friends they were, Charlus and Dorea, I was so sorry when their boy was killed. Then again I was out of the country for a while but I've always kept this establishment here open."

"I will consider your proposal, but I won't promise anything," Charlie nodded, starting to retreat towards the door, tempted to run away from the lair of obviously lying and probably evil wizards. As far as Charlie knew, his father never came even close to Godric's Hollow.

"Well, as my father has mentioned, he used to live abroad, and I myself have been abroad even longer than he. Effectively I returned to London to help him work in this shop a year ago using a somewhat unconventional mode of transport…" Val interrupted to prevent Charlie from leaving, reading his attempt correctly as he was trying to reach the door, careful not to stumble again over any goods at display in the shop.

"Don't tell me", Charlie snorted grabbing a door handle, "a Norwegian Ridgeback?"

"Er… a Brazilian Blue Devil actually. We used to live in Brazil."

"I've never seen that species," Charlie was suddenly interested and stopped at the door. Could seeing an unknown kind of dragon justify that he was dealing with Death Eaters or their supporters at the very least? "Still, I cannot help you. I would need stronger assurances that you do not support certain outlook on the wizarding world."

"Arthur is still a big fan of Muggle culture, isn't he?" asked Mr Peverell.

"That he is," Charlie confirmed.

"Son, if you return later this evening at let's say 23h, I will show you something that might ease your mind concerning where we stand in this war. In the meantime, do go and have some tea with your family. Your mother will be happy to see you," Mr Peverell continued cheerfully.

"All right," Charlie agreed, wondering what they could show him to make him change his mind.

As evening approached, Charlie was more and more curious to see the Peverells again and to leave well behind the sound of the latest hit of Celestina Warback, _My Accursed Love_ , that his mother put on to show her happiness about seeing her second oldest son again. His father was not at home, so he could not discuss with him the strange appearance of Mr Ignotus Peverell. At least the family clock did not show that Arthur Weasley was in mortal danger, it merely stated that he was at work.

Val was waiting for Charlie in front of the shop when he returned.

Except that there was no shop but instead an abandoned Muggle construction site. He noticed that the street was full of Muggles, both young and old, some of them smoking in front of the door, a strange habit for Charlie and an even stranger feat for so late in the evening right above the Ministry of Magic. They didn't seem to notice either Val or himself. He wore Muggle clothing as was his custom in Romania, but Val was in the same plain black witch robes she had worn earlier in the afternoon.

Charlie wondered if the Muggles were under the influence of some collective hallucination. Then he realized it was Friday and Dad told him that Muggles usually went out on Friday night, but why would they go out in front of the wizarding pharmacy disguised as a construction site in their world was beyond his understanding. He remembered some of his Muggle acquaintances in Romania who would go out to have some wine on a bench in the park in summer evenings, but he still couldn't explain away such a large quantity of night visitors.

Val smiled at him and took his hand. "Let me show you what they see," she said.

He reluctantly gave in and in a blink of an eye he was in front of the newly refurbished pub with loud music coming through the doors. The sign above the door didn't read Peverell and Son any more. It read Lyra's in bright orange letters. Charlie entered with Val and was amazed at how busy the place was. The chairs and tables were bursting with people. In the middle there was a small stage with two instruments, a piano and a trumpet. Val shoved him on one of the empty seats at the bar close to the stage. She gave a sign to the barman who may or may not have looked very similar to the old drunk admiring the establishment, the night when Lyra's had first appeared in the middle of Muggle London.

The barman pushed a bottle and a glass of Muggle whisky towards Charlie and winked an eye. Charlie poured himself a glass, took a sip and continued to admire his surroundings. He had never heard of a Muggle bar run by wizards and he was sure that Dad would have loved the place. One or another detail would reveal a presence of magic to a witch or a wizard, such as coat hangers shaped as Centaurs (which occasionally moved), or the fact that the glasses were washing themselves in a closet disguised to look like a Muggle dishwasher. Yet all in all, the interior was simple and full of life.

Charlie braced himself for what was to come and nearly toppled over his chair when Mr Peverell himself climbed the stage, dressed in a pair of worn jeans, dark shirt and no tie. His grey hair that looked thin and greasy on his head in the afternoon was now curly, bushy and carelessly dishevelled. Val joined him, wearing all of a sudden very tight black jeans and a white T-shirt with a star pattern discreetly printed on the back side in shades of silvery grey. Her hair was still in a tight bun but her face had a strange angular beauty in her new attire and the abstract shaped hair pin she wore was no longer black but electric green. Green and silver fitted her perfectly.

Then Val sat at the piano, Mr Peverell lifted his trumpet and they played. Merlin, they played! Charlie has never heard such blood revolving music in his life. The piano set the pace and the trumpet improvised the tune high above it, making the crowd go crazy from cheering. That was how Charlie heard, for the first time in his life, the music Muggles called jazz.

Despite his ignorance, Charlie was sure that it was Muggle music. And no true Dark Lord supporter would play Muggle music in a Muggle bar under any circumstances. It would simply be too disrespectful towards their Master.

Charlie sank in his chair and continued to enjoy the music and drink his whisky when a dark haired woman, vaguely similar to Val, but somewhat older and much more beautiful, with her hair loose in crazy tangles all over her back sat gingerly into a chair next to him. She seemed disorientated and sick, shaking, leaning onto the counter, trying to distinguish where she was with heavy lidded eyes. When the barman tossed her a bottle of Muggle whisky and a glass she didn't react to it at all.

Charlie was intrigued and decided to be a gentleman, even if a lady was quite a bit older than he. Not old enough to be his mother but she could very well have been his aunt, had any of his parents had a younger sister that was not red of hair.

"Let me," he said as he poured her a drink.

The woman was bewildered, she looked at him with crazed pale blue eyes and straightened her spine in an arrogant fashion as if pain she was obviously in did not matter at all.

"This should better be worth my time," she commented swallowing the contents of the glass in one go. "Interesting potion and most interesting vial I must say. Are you brewing it?"

"Er, no," muttered Charlie. "I'm also having some."

"It serves you right. I surely deserve some. I hope that your punishment was severe enough for the failure you committed."

"I'm sure it was," Charlie accepted the game swallowing the contents of his glass in turn, not sure at all what they were talking about. He used the conversation to take a good look at his new bar neighbour. She wore a long black dress with tight long sleeves widening loose from her elbows towards her pale hands covered with silvery scars. Her shoulders were left partially bare by the oval opening on her back. The white of her skin was in stark contrast with her dark hair and several bruises were visible around her neck. She appeared extremely obnoxious and unfriendly.

"Hey, love," one of the guests at a table nearby yelled towards her. "Come and have a drink with me, I'm much more exciting than that boy

The tall, pretty woman rose from her bar chair and strolled to the impertinent guest, towering above him as a sphinx.

"I was told that this establishment guaranteed some privacy", she said calmly, punching the man straight into his face with superhuman force.

Charlie Weasley was stunned. This woman, whoever she was, had a heart of a dragon. And Charlie has always been fond of dragons, as deadly as they were.

Xxxxxxc

Bellatrix Lestrange slowly returned to the bar as the man she hit came to his senses and started fiddling with his glass, pointedly not looking in her direction any more. She sat back on her bar chair with aristocratic poise and for the first time truly noticed the boy, green boy, unknown red-haired boy trying to look like a man, in his early twenties, observing her with a look of utter approval. He was a bit shorter than her, square and well-muscled. His lower arms were full of old scars, but she couldn't distinguish his Dark Mark among them.

That night it was the very first time Bellatrix used the newly established and highly recommended centre providing discreet health care to the Death Eaters in distress under the nose of the Ministry of Magic. Draco's latest failure to introduce Death Eaters to Hogwarts through a set of matching vanishing cabinets had earned her a strong punishment from the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord gave Draco two more days to succeed. There was no room for another failure. It would mean a new punishment for her and a certain death for Draco. She didn't care about the life of her nephew very much but she wouldn't be able to stand the sight of her sister Narcissa crying if something happened to her precious little offspring.

_And Master, sweet Master would then turn to Severus Snape to eliminate Albus Dumbledore._

If she could only find proof in that time that Snape was not only a dirty half-blood but also a dirty traitor, Dumbledore's spy, and present it to her Master to prove she was his most loyal servant! Then she could kill Dumbledore and please the Master.

Her master. Her-… She didn't dare to admit it, not even to herself, not even in her dreams, but she came to believe that the kind of bodily attention she was sometimes called to provide for the Dark Lord might mean something to him as well, whatever it was.

To Bellatrix, the Dark Lord's company meant everything. She had given him her soul long time ago.

Her very being was ablaze every time he graced her with his presence and being tortured by him was a source of strange pleasure. She knew that the amounts of Cruciatus curse she had been exposed to lately would draw any other witch into insanity but she cherished it as a sign of her Master's special affection. She remained lucid enough to understand that even among the Death Eaters some would argue that feeling how she felt was a sign of even bigger insanity. Many commented on the side when they thought she was not listening that madness ran deep in the Black family. The image of her brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy came into mind but she consciously discarded those thoughts. Her faith into their Master would be proven and rewarded one day.

She swallowed another glass of the potion the boy poured for her, helpfully. It reminded her of the Firewhisky her father used to get from private storage of Orion Black, Sirius' father. Her older sister Andromeda and she used to steal it as girls. She cursed herself for unwanted childhood memories that flooded her every time after a good Cruciatus session since she was released from Azkaban. And in the past year she also constantly remembered how her cousin Sirius had died laughing. Mocking her… "Nooo!" she yelled to stop that chain of thoughts as it was particularly self-destructive.

_Maybe Sirius had been the lucky one._

She should have let him live and watch the rise to power of the Dark Lord, all until the death of the Potter boy.

"Er…" coughed the other boy, the red-haired one, stirred by her cry, "great potion, right?"

In a blur of strange sounds she looked at the boy once more. Music that was not there in the dark hospital surroundings was pounding in her head. She couldn't pinpoint the direction it was coming from. She had never heard anything like that. It was almost always quiet in her childhood home and the Dark Lord revelled in silence, the hissing of his snake, or in screams of those who deserved punishment. There was no need for any other sound. Fenrir Greyback told her that the methods in this healing institution were unorthodox but that the Dark Lord approved of it. As a decent pure blood witch could not take the word of that half-breed into account she allowed the Dark Lord to read her mind and her intention of seeking it for the first time. She interpreted his lack of further punishment as an agreement. The Dark Lord had left her as a puddle on the floor and she was still not sure how she Apparated to this clinic alive.

Music, she thought. She remembered aunt Walburga cursing cousin Sirius for listening to something she called "Muggle rock music" in the Black family house. She had never seen her that angry. Her rage had something personal about it as if her aunt discovered that the music hurt her non-existing feelings. Their house-elf, Kreacher, had to cast a permanent silencing charm around Sirius' room to preserve Walburga's fragile nerves because wizarding magic did not work against Sirius' own charms to keep the volume constantly up high.

Bellatrix desired to be like her aunt, devoid of feelings, calm and dignified, at the time when any neutral observer could have told her that she had already lost herself to her fiancée Rodolphus and would have killed herself or anyone else if he had asked her too. Be as it may, there were no fairy godmothers looking after any of the Black children so they grew up as they could. The choices Bellatrix made were particularly deplorable, she turned manic and cold and she took way too much pleasure in inflicting pain.

"Er…" the boy dared going further, "excuse me for saying so, Madam, but sometimes a bit of movement helps the effect of this potion. Maybe I could show you?"

The boy stood, went into the middle of the room and started swaying from one leg to another. She noticed some other patients doing the same thing.

"Why not," she said, helping herself to another glass of the potion that the boy had thoughtfully poured for her before leaving the hospital bed next to her. She stood on her feet and glided to the centre of the room, feeling every muscle ache yet starting to feel light and relieved. She closed her eyes, inhaled the non-existent music and made one careful step forward. Her robes felt different, as if they were transformed into something silky and perfumed, black and shiny as she would have wanted her dress robes to be long time ago in the days of her youth. Bellatrix let her arms fall next to her body and finally relaxed.

She took another step forward and did something she hadn't done since attending balls with her family more than twenty years ago. She took the hand the boy didn't know he was offering and lifted their joined hands up high above her head. And then, gracefully, gently, softly, Bellatrix Lestrange twirled.

Xxxxxx

Charlie Weasley opened his mouth and gazed at her timidly, pondering that he might get hit in his face for it. The black dress was perfect, embracing her and sending sparks when she moved, as if faint starlight had descended deep into the corners of the dark silk. Charlie was prudent enough not to speak. When she finished her turn, she put her hand on his shoulder and they jointly made a few uncertain steps on the dance floor.

"A good therapy, indeed!" the lady exclaimed as the ears of the strong young man next to her turned an impossible shade of red.

Suddenly the music changed to tape. Mr Peverell and his daughter grabbed Charlie from behind, dragging him away from the dance floor and from the unknown dark woman, who remained alone, looking old and crushed by merciless passage of time, her magic suddenly put out like a candle on the graveyard, left to burn for the dead in too strong wind.

Charlie didn't see that change very well, and when he was well behind the stage, Mr Peverell whispered in a frightened voice:

"I see that you have met Bellatrix Lestrange."

Charlie gasped in shock as a little girl and looked back only to see Lestrange clutch the Dark Mark on her left forearm and disappear from the dance podium, flying as black malevolent smoke through one of the open pub windows. The crowd cheered as if they werr witnessing an innocuous stage effect of colourful vapour.

Weasley knew enough about Death Eaters to understand that she was being summoned: they were definitely up to something. He immediately cast a Patronus and relayed a message to his father omitting where he was and why. He was disgusted with himself. He felt as sober as if he hadn't just ingested almost an entire bottle of Muggle whiskey and danced with a Death Eater. And not just anyone, it was the insane Bellatrix Lestrange, the cruellest of all, special friend of You-Know-Who, his right and left arm for messy killings and torture.

Charlie shivered.

 _Mum would kill me if she knew,_ he thought. _Best if she doesn't find out._

Mr Peverell and his daughter conjured another glass of whisky for him. Now it was real Firewhisky, not the Muggle imitation, and as soon as he drank it the bar suddenly turned into an empty herbal shop, tidied up for the night closing hours. There was nothing particular about it.

"We can explain," Val said.

"Honestly, I don't think I want to know. I will give you that your hospital for the Death Eaters is a bit different than I imagined. How did you make her not know where she was?" asked Charlie.

"Sometimes we only see what we believe in", said Ignotus Peverell seriously, as a completely different personality. All giddiness, petty talk and annoying behaviour Charlie saw him exhibit earlier that day were totally gone and vanished from his demeanour. Only his messy hair still revealed the true makings of a passionate musician. "She was in any case partially aware of her surroundings. She could see you and hear the music to some extent. She obviously saw herself seated in more conventional wizarding facilities having a proper potion and being surrounded by other patients…"

"You mean colleague Death Eaters?" Charlie had to ask.

"You could say so. What is most worrying is that none of the other Death Eaters until now has ever been able to glimpse a view of the reality we have showed you tonight to make you see for yourself our true intentions," added Peverell thoughtfully.

"Dad, there was one other who saw something was wrong," Val interfered.

"Indeed. But he is no Death Eater," Ignotus replied to his daughter, ignoring Charlie for a second.

"Dad, how do you know? It's been almost two weeks since he promised to come and see me. He never showed up and the anniversary is tomorrow night..."

"He's no more a Death Eater than I am!" bellowed Peverell, piercing Charlie with a sharp look from his suddenly completely colourless pair of eyes, as if they were woven of drops of water or puffs of thin air. "Son, are you more convinced about helping us with the dragon now?"

"Definitely. No true dark side supporter would play like the two of you did. However, I would like to know how this charm of yours works?"

"That, my boy, is a complicated matter best left for some other time. You would not describe to me the wards that protect your family house in these dark times now, would you? We have just met."

"Of course not, Mr Peverell, I understand what you mean. But I'm still curious," said Charlie with a small smile.

Ignotus Peverell did not react at all and Val busied herself tidying up the shop further.

"I can go and see the dragon now if you wish. I'm returning to Romania tomorrow and I could take it there and place it in the dragon reserve until you need it again for transport. If that's all right with you," he concluded, giving up the questioning for the time being.

"Brilliant!" said Val kissing his cheek and looking much younger and relaxed. "Keeping the Disillusionment Charm on Betty would not be sustainable for much longer. Please treat her kindly."

At that Ignotus Peverell finally decided to speak. "There is one other thing you should know, son. While I cannot explain you all the spells protecting my home, since you agreed to help us, I will reveal to you one of my secrets. As long as the dragon is with you and you remain true to your word to us to keep her safe, you can come back to this place and seek help for yourself. On the top shelf behind the counter there are jars with dragon fire, dangerous artefacts as you may know. Touch them all with your wand. Only one jar will glow blue from your touch.

If you open it and if you are in need to travel, the dragon will come to you from Romania, she would come to you from Brazil if necessary, and she will take you wherever you have to go.

If you are in a dire need of any other kind and cannot find the way, turn the lid two times counter-clockwise, and blow over it as if you're trying to put out the fire. The fire will then show you the vision of what you should do. Trust it. It has never failed me before."

"And if I don't keep to our agreement?"

"You work with dragons, son. If you betray us, the fire will consume you, wherever you are," Peverell's voice rang hollow and meek in the empty shop.

Yet there was no mistake about the warning it contained. Charlie felt his heart sink in his throat as he managed to squeeze out a casual reply: "Very well. Let's meet Betty."


	7. The Colour of Rust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius's new life turns upside down

Sirius was running free in his Animagus form across the low grass of the desolate moors towards the sea, dragging a bag of food with his paws as best he could. His body became strong again and he couldn't stop admiring the small Muggle village he visited more often than not to find what they needed. People were so strangely dressed, men in old fashioned suits and women in long dresses almost covering their feet so that they could barely walk in Sirius's opinion. Even children ran barefoot and dirty in worn suits and dresses. There was not a single pair of jeans or a T-shirt to be seen, there were no shops, no pubs, and all population would go to a small building with the cross on the top once a week in the morning, leaving him lots of time to steal food.

A few wizards and witches he had seen all wore pointed hats, and for the first time in his life Sirius found himself also wearing one if he had to walk unnoticed in the village on two legs instead of four. He liked the historic looks of the settlement and didn't dwell too much on the reasons for his personal paradise to contain it in the first place. When he told Ariana about it, she only shrugged and said she had never gone out of the small house, so she had no idea what was out there in their surroundings.

The days were getting longer and the sun would bathe the small rocky beach beneath their house with some warmth. He soon realized that the village inhabitants never approached the seaside for pleasure, as if it had been cursed; there were a few fishermen making a trade out of it and that was all. A huge shaggy black dog would run to the sea for a good swim, enjoying how the waves almost crushed him and how the chill of the water made him alert and giddy with excitement.

He thought less and less of his life in almost six months he had spent with Ariana. At first, remembering was too painful. His regrets would creep in and make him sick. He felt so inadequate wishing he could have saved James and Lily or helped Harry more. But there was an intruder in his thoughts now, whose golden-orange locks of hair slowly infiltrated all corners of his mind, while he stubbornly remained as he always was; rash and blind to the truth.

Sirius was so happy with his new companionship, loyal to the point that he couldn't grasp the imperceptible slow change in it, just like, long ago, he couldn't have imagined that Peter Pettigrew, one of his four best friends, one of his brothers, would betray them all to Voldemort and ruin their lives.

Had Sirius lived less intensively and thought a tiny bit more, he would have seen it coming. He arranged and rearranged the small house he shared with Ariana. He brought her something new from the outside every day to see how she smiled and told her in great detail about his wanderings, describing every little plant and living creature he had encountered. Ariana would answer by discussing books she was reading and before they knew it he was giving her lessons in the contemporary Defence against the Dark Arts.

He offered her his wand to practice but she refused, afraid of what her magic could do. Instead she repeated the incantations and practised movements with one of the griffin shaped antique lanterns as if it was a wand of sorts. He had a good laugh noticing her growing fascination with the Impedimenta jinx and with Petrificus Totalis; one day she applied it to the candelabrum with seven dragon heads, reaping big success.

She taught him a spell Corpuspiritus and its counterpart Spirituscorpus she had read about in one of her father's own written works entitled _Invisibility: Charms, Cloaks and More._  Sirius had never heard about that spell which in theory transfigured a person into a ghost for a limited amount of time, depending on the caster's magical strength, and could come handy in a duel as curses normally had a tendency to pass _through_  ghosts. _Bella would have wasted her killing curse on me_ , he thought, amused to no end.

Yet Corpuspiritus was nothing but an elaborate illusion – you could charm yourself to appear as a ghost but not into actually being one for any period of time. His own knowledge was very clear on that. He was very careful not to show his misgivings to Ariana, who was for her part thrilled to know something he didn't in the defence area.

They shared the bed every night as if they were siblings and thinking of her in any other way felt like a blasphemy. Sirius was sometimes afraid he was only dreaming and was half expecting to wake up in his real well deserved afterlife of eternal remorse with only Severus Snape for company. He gave secret thanks to whoever was in charge of the universe every morning when this didn't happen. His path back to some sort of spiritual well-being after Azkaban had been arduous and he intended to keep his spirit up at all costs.

Still in the darkest of the night sometimes he would wake up and dream with his eyes wide open. He would watch her sleep and wish he had met her in the street long time ago and asked her out like a man. Muggle cinema came to mind; the film they would see together would have to be old fashioned and slow going. A history, of sorts. _She would like that_ , he was certain.

On occasions he dreamed of showing her his parents' house to help him decorate it together in Gryffindor red and gold. No, he thought, _I would have to leave at least some of the Slytherin greens. Green would fit her, just like it fit Lily, but not because of her eyes, not at all, she would be stunning in green because of the sunlight captured in her hair._

Still wet and shaking to get rid of the excessive water, Sirius finally returned home in his dog form. There was a dark shadow surrounding the small house and the door was locked and freshly warded. Sirius could not come in. He dropped the bag of food at the door and stood up on hind legs to peer in through the window. His mouth dropped open taking in the scene in front of his eyes.

A skinny unknown young man in brown Muggle clothing was having a conversation with Ariana. He could have been just a little bit older than Sirius, who didn't know what to think of the newcomer. His own solitary personal heaven suddenly became way too inhabited. Apparently more souls went to one place. _Maybe there isn't enough room for everybody who is dying,_ he thought, remembering the destruction that Voldemort and his followers were unleashing in the real world.

There was something uncanny about the man despite his ordinary appearance. He irradiated shades of dark purple haze from his person towards Ariana. Sirius thought it must have been some very dark non-verbal spell and Ariana seemed completely unaware of it. The dog was drenched in cold sweat as he gripped the windowsill with toe and nail of two giant black paws to have a better view.

Xxxxxx

"Darling, have you considered my proposition?" Gellert asked, smiling.

Ariana didn't move. Nameless fear gnawed inside her, apprehension from this man who would use her, who had used her, not as bad as those Muggle boys did, but still. She wanted to summon her anger but her magic never worked with him. She never knew if he somehow disabled her or if he simply frightened her that much that she was paralysed. What did he want with her? He didn't look bad, some other normal witch would have been thrilled to marry him. Why did he come after her?

And why, why in good heavens did he have to feed her brother Albus lies about her condition, lies about how dangerous and aggressive she was when he perfectly knew that he could keep her harmless as a proper Squib with his dangerous demeanour and dark spells.

Gellert stretched out his arm and caressed her, the smallest touch of his thumb on her right cheek. Ariana went livid, stiff and shrivelled like a flower on a too hot summer day without any breeze to cool it down.

"Love, one word from you and I will tell them all how much you improved. You will leave this place as my fiancée and you might even get a wand in the future," he continued.

She observed him in mute terror and did not speak.

Gellert drew out his wand. "Why are you so tremulous? I was hoping for a warmer welcome. After all, no one can blame me for what happened. I didn't do anything new to you. Those Muggles took care of everything already. "

He approached even closer, pressing himself against her, and whispered, "Shall I take your silence as a yes?"

"No," she muttered in response, immediately staggering in horror.

"I didn't hear you very well," he leaned his forehead on hers, still smiling and drawing circles with his wand on her stomach.

"No, please," Ariana gasped, collapsing on her knees as the cloud of purple haze emanating from the man swallowed her completely.

Grindelwald took a good look at the woman beneath him.

"I am surprised to see you looking so… good… after being alone for what… almost 6 months? How sad that you refused my proposal the last time! I may have gotten angry and owled your younger brother a vial of dragon pox as an anonymous birthday gift – I hear he survived but he is in a rather bad shape…"

Gellert proceeded to examine the room, stooping to pick up two long black hairs stuck on the frame of the Muggle painting of a birth of a baby boy. Cold fury found its way into his eyes.

"You look positively radiant, my dear. Has somebody else been visiting?" he drooled, deviously. He started pacing in circles around Ariana, observing her attentively from all sides as if she was another obsolete magical artifact and not a human being.

"I wouldn't put it past your uncontrolled crazy magic to somehow let someone slip in. But I'm sure that you'll never get out of here or blow yourself up without my help. I invested all my magical knowledge to ward this place against your freakish outbursts!" the man raged, walking faster and faster, as Ariana refused to speak again and was now staring at the floor.

"Who would say you had it in you? Did you let him come close to you?! Did you allow him to touch you? And did you enjoy it? Albus would've had you locked in St Mungos forever if I didn't advise him against it!"

The enormous black dog was frantically scratching at the window to no avail and Grindelwald was too angry to notice it.

Xxxxx

Gellert's face darkened as he advanced towards Ariana, wand raised in an evil menace, towering over her with the intention to harm her, Sirius was certain. Without thinking, he took his distance from the window, ran as fast as he could and leaped through the glass, shattering it in ten thousand pieces, not knowing if he did it with wandless magic, with pure undiluted rage or using both at the same time.

In seconds he was upon Gellert, and his teeth immediately got hold of the other wizard's wand. Padfoot's jaws closed upon it and then he spat the pitiful stick on the ground as if it was nothing but dead wood. He jumped on Gellert and started tearing at his throat until a crack of Disapparition left him alone, seething over the stone floor, chewing on a piece of shapeless brown fabric tasting like poison. He spat that out as well, as far as he could. It was a considerably bigger effort than usual to transform back to his human form. The animal in him wanted to taste blood and he could not, would not calm down. For the first time he had a hint of how his friend Remus the werewolf must have felt when the wolf took control.

When he finally came to his senses and regained the humanity of his body after several unsuccessful trials, he realised that Ariana was unconscious despite that her eyes were wide open and focused on something in great distance. Using a simple cleaning spell, he vanished the excessive glass from the room, patched the larger cuts on his arms and face and removed the shards of glass from his body, afraid to touch her before he was satisfied he was not going to hurt her with any residues of the window on his person.

Then he sat down and gently pulled her head in his lap spreading her hair on his robes as she did for him on that first day, brushing the tender strands with his fingers, soft and charged with concern. Ariana seemed to be suffering the aftereffect of some curse unknown to Sirius. It must have been the purple shade she was invaded with. And a curse Sirius did not know must have been very dark indeed because he experienced the vast repertoire of semi-legal and illegal dark curses on his skin, when he was being educated as a child in the Black family.

He decided to lay her on the makeshift bed and cover her. She was breathing and seemed stable at the moment. Then he changed back into the animal form to vent his emotions. He always did it that way since Azkaban. As far as possible from Ariana's elongated unmoving feet which protruded between the blankets, the big black dog shivered for countless hours, crumpled on the floor in front of the painting, unable to let his dread and anger go away.

Nothing helped.

When he was on the verge of a complete shutdown, unable to rein in his feelings, incapable to bring them to a stop, he felt a pet on his head and realised that Ariana was awake and seated next to him on the stone floor. The slabs were pale yellow, almost vanilla in colour, with the faintest trace of pink veins which outlined intricate patterns in the immutable stone.

Not knowing if he was a man, or a dog, or both, he clutched at her and started shaking, uncontrollably. He felt being held back but this time she was not gentle and sister-like as she would normally be. She was frenzied, squeezing him back urgently as if she wanted to make certain it was him and not anyone else, or maybe that was only what he wanted to believe. He completely lost it when her fingers got entangled in his hair; she held him so hard that it caused him pain.

He buried himself in her robes pulling at the strings and buttons, wanting to see her as he had never seen her before. She responded in kind turning his robes in badly damaged shreds with her wicked use of accidental magic, but he barely noticed the violence he was subjected to, more skilled as he was in getting the access he needed with less damage to her garments. His hands visited her body in detail, vaguely aware that hers tried to do the same for him, much more aware that her body did react to his touch in ways he could only have dreamed. Yet he couldn't bring himself to raise his face to hers for the fear of what he would see.

She pushed him away gently to a safe seated distance and he found that he could not stand her rejection. So in the end he just stared at her once more, stupefied, in awe of her form exposed freely in front of him, more beautiful than any woman he could have ever imagined.

He tried to say something but Ariana put her hand on his mouth and smiled at him, with emotion he could not recognise, her eyes a source of the most brilliant blue. It was the most wonderful sight he had ever seen.

Sirius didn't kiss her then because he just couldn't stop looking directly in her eyes, seeking the reassurance that it was alright. That it could be done. That he could be her man. None came but her gaze didn't waver.

He threw all caution to the wind and pulled her on top of him, noticing a puzzled glimmer in her eyes, not knowing what it meant, not caring at that point. They became lovers then and there, on the cold stone floor, drowning in one another. It was unmeasured, uncomfortable and unforgiving, but it felt as natural as breathing, as logical as drinking water after crossing a desert.

It felt incredible.

"You are mine," he whispered possessively afterwards, leaving any other conversation he wanted to pursue for some other time. She made some hassle to dress and rearrange her robes, before she let him pull her back into his arms, from where she should never leave, if Sirius had a say about that.

When he finally decided to move a bit from their embrace, curious as to where the new situation would take them, he noticed a small rust-coloured stain on the pale floor, bright and rude, screaming in the daylight.

How could it be? She was of age, it could not be that... Or could it?

Sirius had thousand questions for Ariana but he could not speak a word because now she was pulling him back into her arms, misleading him with determination, straight into a full Body-bind spell. He could not move any more. With loving attention Ariana dressed Sirius up as if he was her doll, reconfirming the new knowledge of his body with her hands as she went, putting to good use the fresh set of black robes he had stolen in the village a week ago. She burned most of the robes she ruined on one of the candle holding dragon heads, which seemed happy to get some fuel for its fire at last. Methodically, she set aside a few brownish looking threads for later.

Sirius felt being levitated towards their bed and back to the wall like a bag of potatoes. He was ruthlessly positioned under the small table with chimaera-shaped legs they used for dining. Ariana then busied herself building a credible disorder of books and dishes on and around the table as if she was just caught in middle of her reading after dinner.

Only when she was finished and seemingly satisfied that Sirius was completely incapacitated and hidden, she looked at him and said flatly, all emotion absent from her voice: "I'm sorry, Sirius. This is for your own good."

The sentence and the sentiment it did not contain would have left Sirius speechless even if he wasn't already hexed into silence against his will

Ariana turned her eyes away. For all her proclaimed good intentions, she seemingly could not stand to see, written all over his face, a crazed expression of one betrayed.

Refusing to look at him again, Ariana stood in the middle of the room, flushed, waiting, calm as steel. Her blue eyes started to twinkle dangerously in a way Sirius had never seen them, yet the sensation was familiar. _Who did they remind him of? An old friend of a kind…_ Sirius did not know.

She took the unburned pieces of brown fabric and scattered them strategically in front of the Muggle painting, where another piece of textile that Padfoot spat out still lay.

And it was only at that moment that Ariana finally must have noticed the rust-coloured imprint on the floor where they had been. Her incredulous gaze rapidly checked her light grey robes observing a matching stain there, a silent witness of what they had done.

Her look of genuine shock immediately jumped back to Sirius and she appeared to have lost all her newly found assuredness. Her bottom lip trembled.

There was no time for explanations as the cracks of Apparition were heard one after another and three very different wizards materialised in the room. Ariana immediately ran towards the much younger version of the man Sirius knew sympathized the Order of the Phoenix, a barman in the sinister pub Hog's Head in the Hogsmeade village near Hogwarts, broad-shouldered and brown-haired. She hugged him with all her strength.

"Aberforth!" she cried hiding herself in his arms. "It's been so long!"

"Ariana!" Abeforth embraced her protectively and positioned himself between Ariana and the other two newcomers, the man Sirius nearly killed earlier that day and a very tall and thin young man with long auburn hair, wearing bright purple robes decorated with a pattern of lime coloured stars.

"Albus, when were you going to tell me that our sister was alive?" Aberforth burst out.

"Aberforth, I will repeat this as long as necessary, I had no idea. Gellert has just found her after twelve years of search, for Merlin's sake! Be glad that our father's painting took her and that she didn't die in a fit of her spontaneous magic as I let everyone believe. Our father was a Dark Wizard. I should have _never_ honoured his last wish and left that painting with her," Albus Dumbledore said in a flat voice of reason, coloured with the faintest trace of guilt, as a dumbstruck Sirius realised the identity of his former teacher and friend, gaping wordlessly for air in frantic heroic fight against the invisible bonds keeping him in mute hiding.

Sirius struggled and he yelled but no matter what he did, he could still not move and no one could hear him. _Useless as usual,_ he thought bitterly.

"Albus, twelve years ago you told me she died! We held a funeral for her! I broke your nose because I blamed you for her death! HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN? How frequently have YOU visited her? Or did you leave her in HIS care while you went on your travels, your search for hallows, is that how you call them?" Aberforth was clearly out of his mind.

"I didn't know, Aberforth. All I had was assumptions! Look at the painting behind you. We've always suspected it had dark properties," Dumbledore replied calmly in a tone he used so often when advising Sirius to stay put in his horrible old house for Harry's sake.

Aberforth would not relent: "When was the last time you visited her before today when this scum came knocking at your door? For once I am glad I chose the same time to pay you a visit!"

The scum used the time since he returned wisely, to surreptitiously retrieve his wand from the floor where it had been launched from Padfoot's jaws. Gellert pretended to draw it from the back pocket of his Muggle trousers, the same pair he was wearing earlier. _No time to change_ , thought Sirius sarcastically. Ariana stood unmoving as a statue, hidden behind Aberforth, when the purple wave from her would-be attacker approached her again, this time, Sirius noticed, only to be halted in front of Aberforth by a luminous pale orange air bubble, probably a shielding charm Aberforth conjured wordlessly.

As if his presence grew with the wand he was wielding again, Gellert walked slowly towards Aberforth and Ariana who backed off together towards the Muggle painting of a birth of a baby boy on the opposite wall, that Albus seemed to blame for bringing Ariana to the small house to start with.

"I would choose your words wiser if I were you, goat lover!" Grindewald hissed. "Albus and I wasted twelve years searching for your sister and I came to him as soon as I found her! And it was not easy with her disability! Now we need to commit her to an institution. The Nurmengard Institute for Terminal Cases of Spell Damage under my direction is probably the most suitable place."

"Gellert," Ariana said, calm and cold as ice, still well hidden by Aberforth's strong body and thick roughspun brown robes. The young girl cowed by Gellert's presence, who was writhing on the floor under his malignant spell, was gone. Both her brothers observed the change in her demeanour intently.

 _How could I've ever missed it?_ Sirius thought proudly. _She's a Dumbledore through and through. The only wizard Voldemort has ever been afraid of…_

Another realisation struck him… How big a moron could he possibly be? That bloke who attacked Ariana must have been buggering Gellert GRINDELWALD! Sirius wholeheartedly regretted not being awake more frequently in the ghost Professor Binns' History of Magic class or he would have surely remembered Grindelwald's first name was Gellert much faster.

"Thank you for your care, Gellert", Ariana continued softly, almost leaning at the Muggle painting, which was now right behind her, and to Sirius's vivid imagination it started looking sentient, as if the dark skies above the peaceful Nativity scene woke up to an eerie life of their own.

There were strange whispers all over the small stone house above the sea but only Sirius and Ariana could hear them.

"Stop lying to me, Albus! You absolute coward! Merlin knows what this scum did to her in all that time!" Aberforth yelled, pulled out his wand and plunged forward as if he wanted to stab his brother rather than hex him.

Grindelwald moved to defend Albus, who was forced to cast a strong shield charm which rebounded and brought all three wizards down to the ground.

Ariana was now in plain view, face clearly visible and framed by the painted dark blue sky. Both Albus and Aberforth stood up and stared at their sister as if they had now seen her for the first time in their lives.

Sirius observed Gellert, thinking that the aspirant Dark Lord looked as if he would have gladly turned into a rat and run to hide in the nearest sewer, just like a certain traitor Sirius used to be friends with would have done.

"Albus, your sin is beyond measure–" whispered Aberforth, horrified.

"Gellert, what have you done?" Albus interrupted his brother, danger building in his voice.

"I –" started Gellert, cowering backwards.

"You know, Gellert, I could have loved you if you had only asked me politely," Ariana administered a final blow to her kidnapper and gaoler in a monotonous voice, while exposing better to everyone's view the bloody stain in the disarray of her robes, her bare white neck and slender forearms, marked with fresh and unmistakable traces of forceful intimacy.

Grindelwald's face turned from scarlet to green as he tried to release another wave of purple haze towards Ariana, presumably to stop her from talking. The torn pieces of brown fabric at Ariana's feet perfectly matched the colour of his blouse near his neck, where a piece of textile had been ripped apart with canine teeth.

"Instead of cursing me to suppress my freakish outbursts as you call them, you could've done something for me. And it could have been very simple. I love when someone makes breakfast for me, did you know that, Gellert?" Ariana hammered her point without mercy, shielded by orange glow, before she looked away, smiling, her gaze wandering aimlessly for a second as if she was mentally deranged from the perspective of an outside viewer.

Sirius understood that her last sentence and her vulnerable smile were a declaration meant for him under the table. For the first time that day, tears started running freely down his face threatening to choke him, if his many times wounded heart did not stop beating first.

He was not the only one suffering a nervous breakdown as at that moment Gellert sank to his knees and looked as if he was about to beg Ariana for forgiveness.

Aberforth launched himself at Gellert hitting him with his fists. All emotion instantly gone from the future Dark Lord, Grindelwald retaliated with a nasty Expulso spell sending Aberforth to the wall. Albus joined the fight and spells started flying all over the room in jets of flames of red and blue. The forces were equal and there was no winning or losing side in a duel of three wizards. In the heat of a moment there was a green flame directed to Aberforth, sent by Grindewald or perhaps by his own brother, Sirius could not tell.

Aberforth ducked reflexively, Albus Apparated forward to try and push Ariana out of harm's way but it was too late. The smallest touch of green light hit her squarely in the neck as she stumbled into the dark blue painted sky, now rippling furiously as in storm, swallowing her lean form and the painted figures until only the dark wavy surface remained, a tattered black cloth hanging on a pointed arch.

Sirius screamed in soundless terror.

Albus' eyes shined with fury when he failed to reach Ariana. With the speed of light Sirius had never seen in the old man he knew, long auburn hair following his motion, he turned his wand on Grindelwald with all the intent required to perform any and all of the Unforgivable curses, only to hear a loud crack of his opponent Disapparating.

"What have I done?" Albus asked himself, devastated, in face of the Veil of Death.

"You killed our sister for good this time, Albus!" Aberforth concluded, spat on his brother and blasted a hole in the walls of the small house. He then left walking like a simple Muggle would, without another word.

The smell of the sea permeated the little stone house fully on the inside for the first time in twelve years. The scent spoke of wholeness and of hope, but hope could not reach Albus Dumbledore, or Sirius Black, submerged in their grief.

Albus slowly gathered his wits and carefully levitated the Veil of Death, noticing a pair of long black hairs on the arch just like Gellert did. Dumbledore immediately produced a phoenix shaped Patronus and gave it instructions, "Stay here. If someone returns, tell them that I have decided to donate this obviously perilous dark artifact to the Ministry of Magic to prevent further tragedies."

Then he spoke dangerously to no one in particular but the words he said sounded like the coming of doom, "Gellert, my friend, one day I will challenge you. And I will win. For the greater good."

Dumbledore walked out of the small stone house, the Veil of Death gliding ominously before him like a surface of a lake at night hung upside down. The smell of the sea and sweet herbs continued to fill the air as if someone, somewhere, considered that not all was lost.

It took more than twelve hours for the Body-bind spell Ariana put on Sirius to wear off because despite Grindewald's dubious methods of controlling her magic, Ariana was in many aspects almost a Squib and certainly not a trained witch. She lacked precision. During that time Sirius tortured himself with regrets. He had to move. He had to know for sure. He cursed his stupid arrogant self for not using his brains before or he would have noticed all the hints that were there about the reality of his situation. He could have saved Ariana if he only stopped for a moment to think, instead of living his life on an impulse.

 _She must have been so afraid of me in the beginning,_ he realised, _and Snivellus was so right; I truly am an idiot after all._

As soon as the spell finally wore off, he whispered to the Phoenix shaped Patronus still lingering in the room, "Go back to Albus Dumbledore and tell him: If you ever see your sister again, tell her that the man who used to make her breakfast loves her. And that he has gone to do whatever it takes to find her again."

The Phoenix diluted graciously in the thin air. Sirius was not sure why he spoke to it. As far as he knew, the Patronuses couldn't carry a message back to their owner and Sirius was not about to cast his own dog-shaped one or to reveal his identity to anyone in that strange new world before he found some solid answers.

Feeling pathetic, Sirius transformed into a dog and ran off to the nearby village, not looking for food but instead for information. There was no newspaper to be seen in that village so he ran farther. He ran for a week before he reached a small town and snitched the newspaper from a clumsy street vendor.

Sirius hid himself and studied the front page which confirmed his worst assumptions. He was in 1925. He didn't die. Bellatrix' killing spell sent him through the Veil and embarked him on a voyage through time. He never thought that possible, not to that extent. And in the meanders of time he had met the sister of his friend, leader and former teacher of all wizards, fell in love with her and caused her death.

His mind racing forward, he finally jumped to the only logical conclusion. If the Veil did this to him, it must have done the same thing for her. There was no other way. He refused to believe in her death as stubbornly as he wanted to believe in his own until Grindelwald devastated his little private paradise.

The Veil was obviously a dark object. At that moment Sirius knew what had to be done. He was alive and he had a purpose again. There was only one place where he could go and look for answers, only one treasury of knowledge about all things dark that he knew about, and which most definitely existed in 1925.

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was difficult to write. Am wondering what you think about it, if anything at all.


	8. The Call of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Snape's state of confusion exponentially increases

Charlie and Betty were well on their way to Romania when another Death Eater party crashed into Val's perfectly regularly-looking hospital the evening after. Bellatrix was leading them, and Severus Snape finally arrived with her as he had promised. There was a young blond student shivering in a corner. There were a dozen others, all dishevelled, yet happy beyond measure.

Bellatrix waved her wand with new authority at Val. "We require shelter for a few hours. Bring also that healing potion of yours. Now!"

Val hurried to do as she was commanded while the Death Eaters continued pacing and cheering in the back of her shop, which continued to look like a proper small hospital with beds, vials of potions and wizarding healing devices.

Bellatrix destroyed one wall of miscellaneous equipment blasting it and setting it on fire with a careless Reductor curse, giggling all the time like an excited schoolgirl. "Party time, boys and girls! And little baby boys!" She gave an ugly wink to the frightened blond boy. "I would've never believed that Snape here had it in him to kill great Albus Dumbledore!"

Xxxxxx

Severus Snape produced a self-satisfied smirk and said, "My only endeavour is to serve the Dark Lord."

Pulling his ugliest grin and doing his best to look more evil then usual, Severus looked around and confirmed that dearest Bellatrix had them all Apparate precisely where he suggested and immediately made a terrible mess out of Val's shop. He hoped it would not come to torture and killing as was Bellatrix's wont when her emotions ran high, no matter if she was rejoicing or just enraged.

As usual when in proximity of Val, Severus instantly succumbed to the uncanny feeling that something was wrong or simply out of place. This time it was not Val, it was her father who was shaking in fear in one of the fuzzy corners, while one of the Death Eaters was trying to Imperius him to walk on all fours, in which he eventually succeeded. Yet the fear looked faked… And the man humiliated to act like a beast seemed somehow immaterial, as though he were not in the same room with them at all.

Pushing all thoughts about what was queer in the surroundings to the back of his mind, as dear Bellatrix was known to suddenly use Legilimency on fellow Death Eaters for fun, Severus searched for Val but he couldn't see her. Bellatrix and the others continued demolishing the premises and young Draco Malfoy sunk even deeper in one of the corners.

Severus stopped worrying about Val for the moment only to get crushed by the realisation he had just killed the only person who knew all the truth about him or as much as he could tell another sentient being. Dumbledore may have not been his father, or his friend, but sometimes he came closer to those two categories than anyone else did. Knowing that he had to do it to spare Dumbledore a messy death, as a consequence of a dark curse that struck him, didn't make it any easier for Snape. On the contrary, he felt inadequate, misplaced and alone. What kept him going, again, as usual, was his desire for vengeance and murderous thoughts towards Voldemort.

 _We will all die,_ he thought, _but so will you, Master, if I can help it, so will you._

Snape's mental torture ended when all the Dark Marks started burning and the Death Eaters Disapparated to join their Master in Malfoy Manor. Already in the presence of Voldemort, Snape nearly lost his composure when he discovered a small piece of enchanted wrapping paper with a a star-print stuck to the blackness of his robes, peeping in conspiracy whisper, in Val's voice, before vanishing through his fingers, " _Come back later tonight! Forget about Bella, we can do without._ "

Many hours later, some time past midnight, a dead tired Severus Snape strolled through a Muggle street full of trees and fell asleep seated on the doorstep in front of the herbal shop. Some young Muggles exiting the place almost stepped on him and kicked him with their feet, waking him up. One of them murmured, "That old drunk again! And I thought him gone".

Severus was too dizzy to notice the abnormality of teenage Muggles being there in the first place when Val finally found him muttering nonsense. "Malfoy, two hours out of Azkaban, and nearly killed by the Dark Lord. Because his fifteen years old son could not murder as well as I could. Madness! Death take us all!"

Val pulled him inside and poured a vial of something into his mouth, bombing him with fast and nervous words, "This is not very healthy for you but it will clear your mind. You are a potions master so believe me when I tell you that you don't even want to ask me what it is."

Severus nodded and slumped on the doorstep again, coughing blood, a side-effect of the potentially lethal State of Shock Draught he recognised only too well as he brewed it for St Mungos hospital. There it was used to forcefully wake up patients from magically induced coma, and that only in hopeless cases when nothing else worked.

Val sat next to him, oblivious to how sick he was, and continued ranting like a shotgun, "You need to take me to the place where we can find a personal object that belonged to Sirius Black and then we have to go to the Veil of Death immediately. My father talked to one of the Unspeakables on guard earlier this evening and found out that the Veil's surface started showing some activity about the time when you and your friends honoured us with your visit. The phenomenon corresponds roughly to the anniversary of Sirius's death which is in a few hours from now!"

"I need ten minutes," said Snape flatly, too tired to notice that Val sat entirely too close to him for his liking. "And you're more stupid than even I presumed!"

"Why?" Val asked innocently.

"To leave a message that could be found on me. Don't you know where I went?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Val said cheerfully. "I'm glad that dad's wrapping paper was finally put to good use. Besides, I never liked the notion of using constellation patterns prone to changing shape as packaging."

In less than five minutes, a newly composed Severus Snape and a very enthusiastic Val clad in electric green robes instead of her usual black ones stood in front of the house on Grimmauld Place 12. Severus fought a watery weakness threatening to pour out of his eyes when he felt the Order wards gone and the Fidelius Charm broken with the death of Albus Dumbledore. All the Order Members, including Snape, the traitor, have become Secret Keepers in turn. At least the Order did not yet regroup sufficiently to curse the house against Snape. So instead of letting the tears fall, Severus managed to produce a half-hearted trademark smirk with his exhausted facial muscles, making Val laugh heartily.

"What?" Snape snapped, irritated by the woman's obvious stupidity.

"Nothing. It's just you being you. Don't get me wrong but I'm not your student and I'm in no need of good intimidation."

"I couldn't care less about what you might require. We're here to work, Ms Peverell. I'm not sure if you're quite familiar with the concept..." Severus said venomously, his grief for Albus threatening to spill out through the many hollow places of his aged soul.

At that moment, they were entering the hall of Grimmauld Place 12. The old door with the snake handle gave way to let in two late night visitors, an old guest and a total stranger.

Buried in his grief for a friend lost, Snape missed the precious moment when he should have warned Val not to touch anything. It was too late because she was already grabbing the curtains hiding the portrait of Mrs Walburga Black, Sirius' mother, that would scream horrible offences at any visitor. It normally took very strong spells to silence her, with potential to ruin their mission if a patrolling Order Member overheard the commotion.

All Members of the Order of the Phoenix tried to sneak around her portrait on tiptoes. All except Sirius, who sometimes morbidly enjoyed waking his mother, only to shut her up with even crueller retorts and curses.

Severus could not have possibly ever imagined what happened next.

Val opened the curtains. Severus took out his wand and was about to cast a powerful silencing charm.

Except that there was no sound.

Mrs Black stared at Val in utmost shock, eyes wide open.

Val acted with genuine innocence towards a notorious portrait, "Charming woman. Could we use this painting for our plan? She looks a lot like Sirius on some of his photographs."

Snape chuckled as Sirius' resemblance to his mother was only obvious in the worst periods of his life, such as after living several months on rats, as well as in his craziest moments. He supposed Val must have seen the famous picture of a madman laughing before being shipped to Azkaban, just like half of the wizarding world did.

Severus remembered Walburga from the time she was seeing her sons off on Hogwarts Express, a very different woman, cold but distinctive, not a crazy old hag like her portrait personality.

Val continued, more candid than ever, "I suppose she was his mother and he must have loved her!"

Severus thought that the silence of the portrait was a true miracle.

At his current rate of exhaustion, notwithstanding the semi-legal energy potion he drank, he was glad for all things odd about Val. He didn't care how much she was not telling him about her manifestly present, although skilfully hidden magical abilities, as long as she could do such wonderful things. That woman was no Muggle, perhaps a Muggle-born, but surely a witch. The Dark Lord was wrong. And the Dark Lord was very rarely wrong about anything whatsoever.

In that priceless moment the things made a turn for even more bizarre. At the repeated sound of Val's voice, Mrs Black burst into tears, turned around and ran away deep into the dark background of the painting, where she disappeared in one of the shady patches of old paint, as if she didn't want to be seen sobbing.

Snape decided to think later about all that, for he was decidedly too tired to think at all, so he just closed the curtains. "I would advise against using the portrait. Black's old room was upstairs on the second floor. Let's find something over there".

They heard Mrs Black whimpering silently as they walked up.

Val chose a photograph of Sirius and his school friends from the walls. _The Marauders_ , Snape thought, remembering the humiliations he was victim of at school, most of them coming from Sirius and his three best friends. Apparently the Permanent Sticking Charm had lost its strength over time and Val could easily take the picture from the wall. Snape was curious and tried to remove another picture but on that one the Charm held. Or it was again one of those things Val could just do, like the miracle with Mrs Black.

Yet, when she did it, the copy of the photograph in black and white colours, its ghost, its shadow, remained on the wall. Sirius and his friends were waving cheerfully in the lost land of happy ever afters none of them ever reached in life. Snape caught himself thinking that despite everything those were the good times. War had not yet started. He had not yet been stupid enough to become a Death Eater.

And Lily was alive.

Pushing away all memories before he would collapse again from dizziness and negative emotion, he followed Val downstairs. They had to hurry.

On the way out Severus had to notice that Mrs Black was still crying.

"Her reaction to you is peculiar," he said to Val. "I would be curious to see if she would actually speak to you if you tried."

Val just shrugged, unimpressed, and stepped outside. They were in a rush to reach their destination.

The dawn was about to break, much colder than it should have been at the end of June. The very life on earth seemed diminished and faint, and the times have turned dark. Severus wondered if that had anything to do with his own actions that night and the passing away of the greatest wizard of their age, Albus Dumbledore.

They reached the Ministry just on time. The premises were deserted and the lonely night guard stunned before he could sound an alarm. When they arrived to the Department of Mysteries, Severus started searching his robes for the special potion he prepared to enhance the effect of his spell to call Sirius back.

The Veil was still rippling, but they could both tell that it was gradually becoming more and more still. And in a matter of minutes it would become like a deep blue sea, calm and polished as oil in the windless hour of the night.

Val wasted no time grabbing the photograph of the Marauders, which she had kept close to her chest. Snape found the vial he was searching for and was about to consume it when the liquid from it suddenly disappeared.

"Where-?" he exclaimed.

"-What?" she reacted turning to look at him again.

"This vial! It was full!" Snape said.

"What vial?" Val asked looking at Snape as if he was manifestly out of his mind, her eyebrows curving in disdain Snape could use on particularly incompetent students. It would have worked especially well to frighten a Hufflepuff.

Snape looked at his hands and they were empty. The vial was nowhere to be seen. _Am I so tired that my mind is not working?_ Snape thought, frantically searching his robes. His face remained impassive as ever and if he looked at Val at that moment he would see her suppressing an evil grin.

The rare potion Snape meticulously carried with him every day in the past two weeks, not knowing when they were going to attempt to call Sirius Back, had mysteriously disappeared. The failure of their action was almost guaranteed.

Turning to face the Veil, Val produced a large vial from her robes, more then half empty and too big for its contents, where she had previously stored three drops of her own blood.

"So far, so good", she said, and to Snape her words sounded like a strange encouragement. "I hope that I remember correctly my father's instructions and that they will work against all odds."

Then she dropped one drop of blood on the photograph, one on the ground in front of her feet, as close to the Veil as possible without falling into it, and finally the last drop into the arch. Thick grey fumes soared from the Veil and filled up the room, slowly turning the stale air of the Ministry cellars into a whirlwind of dark purple haze mingled with orange glow.

Severus started speaking the incantation summarizing the main events in Sirius's life, all the while not believing he was the author of that particular eulogy. His exacerbated hatred towards Sirius grew in intensity with every point in his biography he was forced to mention, if he was to succeed in his latest personal obsession to set things right. _As if anybody can set anything right in life!_ Severus wondered why he couldn't stop himself from trying. And he was sure that without the Empathy brew he had lost, the spell would not work. He needed the potion to make his story heartfelt, because he could not possibly bring himself to genuinely admire any deeds Black committed in life.

Val responded by singing in a language unknown to Severus. It wasn't a spell, but a kind of a song, a lullaby perhaps, or music from some tropical place. She looked expectantly towards the Veil, humming softly amidst relentless purple fog becoming thicker and thicker, threatening to choke them.

Xxxxx

She would never admit to Snape that she saw serious flaws in her father's theory that anybody's blood would do the trick with the help of something belonging to the person stuck in the Veil. She continued to sing, hoping that Snape would mistake a simple song for children in Brazil for something more intelligent and part of the ritual to bring Sirius Black back from the dead.

Contrary to Snape's obviously biased opinion about education outside Hogwarts, Val had had very good education in South America. She was a professional magical healer and excelled in many other subjects such as transfiguration. And all her previous knowledge agreed with Severus' assessment of the matter at hand; a blood of a close relative was required to succeed in what they were attempting to do.

Xxxxxx

Severus felt sick. It was around 4am and he didn't have any sleep in the past 72 hours. He wanted to leave, but he was simply too tired to get to it, when a faint orange breeze victoriously overcame the purple mist in front of the malevolent arch. The Veil stopped moving, resembling a normal curtain again, black and tattered, fluttering gently on the non-existing wind.

"We must have done something wrong," Severus said. "We should have waited or brought Bellatrix here by force."

"No, Severus. My father was clear that my blood would do."

"Your blood, obviously," Severus reacted poisonously before thinking "why didn't he use his if he's so intelligent..."

"My father cannot give blood because he suffers from a permanent health condition that prevents it!" Val reacted furiously. A splash of slime-coloured green liquid materialised in the air and sputtered all over Snape's face and hair obeying the call of gravity.

"There goes your potion," Val laughed, amused. "Very funny. Are you always that funny when you... how did you label our association? When you work with someone?" Snape wiped his face with both hands, recognising the lost Empathy brew by touch, a precious potion, wasted. Red with anger, he had no opportunity to offer a nasty comment, because Val, as always, just had to continue talking.

"And my father was 100% sure that it had to work with my blood as I already told you a million times. There must be something else we didn't take into account. I should return home and revise dad's notes," the disappointment returned to Val's voice and all of a sudden it boarded on despair. "He will be devastated by our failure. He really wanted to help Sirius."

Hearing her admit her own failure somehow calmed Snape's murderous instincts to just stun her unconscious and go away. He decided against it and was about to cast a Concealment Charm around them both and attack the thick purple mist surrounding the exit so that they could both leave, before the arrival of the first curious Ministry employees.

Then, swiftly, decidedly, bluntly, terribly, the Veil tore apart and spouted an unconscious person in front of their feet, surrounded by orange mist.

It was not Sirius Black.

It was a not even a man.

An unknown young woman laid immobile on the pavement, her long blond hair with some traces of red in it spilled around her face as a pool of orange blood. Her breathing was soft and irregular. There was some dried blood on her skirts and she had prominent bruises on her forearms and neck. Val and Severus were rendered speechless, faced with the fruit of their action.

Severus gathered the last atoms of his magical strength to levitate the body of a stranger. He pulled both Val and the hovering form close to him and cast the Concealment Charm, hoping that the night guards would not think too much about an extremely large office plant they would be shortly seeing, changing locations within the Ministry. He thought of _Potter_ and his damn Invisibility Cloak which would have come handy in their situation.

They moved very slowly and two painful hours later they were in Val's shop, looking human again, although Severus decidedly didn't feel that way. They laid the unknown guest on one of the beds in Val's Death Eater hospital. She seemed to be peacefully asleep.

It was almost 6am.

"I should leave. The Ministry will undoubtedly try and arrest me today for my crime," stated Severus quietly.

"You should get some sleep first. I can assure you that you are quite safe at my place, at least until your arm starts burning," Val was adamant in not letting him go as if he was one of her patients.

Severus gave up arguing with her and focused the little amount of attention he had left to examine the sleeping woman. He knew one thing for sure, the spell they performed could theoretically only bring forth somebody who shared the blood of Sirius Black, or very hypothetically the blood of the Black family, but the woman did not look like them. She didn't even look like a witch. Thin and helpless, she commanded compassion and the healer in Val was already busy examining her and making her bed more comfortable.

Snape decided to interrupt her and allow some curiosity to leave his mind. The hour was late and they had gone well past the normal acquaintance with each other, at least by his standards, so he asked, trying to ignore the slimy dripping of the potion drying slowly in his hair, "Why did you start calling me Severus?"

"I wanted you to respond in kind and call me Val. It makes me feel so old when they call me by my last name. I may be a few years older than you but I'm not that old…"

"When did you graduate?" Severus asked.

"I'm 38 if that was the meaning of the question," Val replied harshly.

"I checked and there is no such school as Chile Academy for Advanced Witchcraft. I would really like to know when and where you went to school," Severus inquired almost politely, fighting the urge to sleep forever in the back of his mind.

"I would prefer not talking further about my certainly flawed education if you don't mind."

"Val…" he welcomed the rolling of her name on his vocal chords, daring a more serious question in a nearly serious voice, with only the slightest touch of his standard sarcasm. "What other things are you not telling me?"

"I'd rather not talk about that either. Let's get some rest and then think about solving our common problem here," she ended the discussion pointing at the sleeping form on the bed when two Apparition cracks brought two dark hooded figures in the middle of the room.

Mr Peverell entered from nowhere. Severus felt a _breeze_  tickling his hands, and he saw Val taking Ariana's hands. In an instant, the hospital room was gone. He was sitting in a cosy half empty pub with Ariana sleeping on a chair next to him, her head leaned on his shoulder. A few guests were drinking and cheering towards a small stage in the corner, featuring an abandoned trumpet and a piano. Old barman was polishing the bar with a damp yellow cloth. Severus froze noticing the two hooded figures seated there. They didn't even have to show themselves for him to recognise Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy.

"Trust me, Lucius, I would never bring my sister's husband to an unsafe place. You are an idiot but since Narcissa likes you I intend to help you restore your miserable health." Bellatrix waved to the barman who served them Muggle whisky, some fancy brand Snape's father used to prefer when he could afford it. "Drink!" Bella was always decidedly friendly in forcing people to do what she wanted. "It helped me after my last punishment, and at first I certainly didn't trust that filthy half-breed Greyback either when he recommended me this place."

Lucius Malfoy looked ancient and he seemed to be unable to talk, shaking as a leaf. Severus felt a pang of guilt and suppressed it immediately. Not his fault, this. He managed to save Lucius's son Draco from splitting his soul by murder at the age of fifteen, and that had to be enough.

 _Hide, you idiot!_ The impulse came to him with too much delay but when he wanted to get up and take Ariana with him, the barman stood in his way and served him a bottle of whisky as well. Severus was puzzled as he realized something else. Bellatrix and Lucius wore casual Muggle clothing.

_Impossible!_

Severus looked down at himself. Instead of his usual black robes he spotted black baggy jeans and an extra large black sweatshirt. He nervously touched his new attire all over and felt a large hood on his back. He was horror-struck and did not even dare to look at his shoes. The robes of the unconscious woman next to him turned into simple grey Muggle dress in a very basic design fashionable that summer. Severus would never admit it, but he was prone to gossip and he would regularly check Witch Weekly when a copy could be found forgotten somewhere in Hogwarts. The Great Hall was a particularly good place to harvest it. He glanced from the barman to Bellatrix and Lucius, only to catch Bellatrix staring through him as if Snape were not there.

 _She can't see me! She is here and yet somewhere else at the same time. The Peverells are somehow fracturing the reality. Impossible!_ he thought once more, fighting to keep his facial expression mean, so that Val could not see how impressed he was, in case she was watching him.

Before he could logically dissect and determine the origin of the unusual spell in place, he was distracted by the appearance of two musicians on the stage among cheers of scarce crowd. The short old man with all of a sudden long, bushy, ash-blond hair, striped shirt and dark jeans lifted the trumpet. A good looking, angular-faced woman in a pair of tight blue jeans and shiny, blazing, black and silver T-shirt sat at the piano, her hair tight in a bun held by electric green pin.

Severus couldn't believe his own eyes and ears regarding the scene unfolding in the pub when the music started.

 _I must be dreaming,_ he thought. _Voldemort's snake must have poisoned me and I am now hallucinating..._

"Come, Lucius, there is also some kind of on the move therapy that goes with the potion" he heard Bellatrix trying to be helpful to her brother-in-law despite her abominable character. As Lucius didn't move, Bellatrix pulled him to the dance podium and started gently moving with the Muggle music, urging Lucius to do the same but without major success. Bella laughed as Severus didn't hear her laugh since he was a first year in Hogwarts, when she had almost graduated but hadn't become a Death Eater yet. After a while, Lucius ended up crawling on the floor so she hoisted him back to the bar and poured him another drink.

Severus forgot his glass and pulled a sip of whisky directly from the bottle, trying to disregard how much it made him look like his father. He permitted himself to look at the woman playing the piano who precisely at that moment moved a stranded dark lock from her face into the bun, tossed her head backwards as if in trance from playing, and then sent a huge wink his way, followed by a knowledgeable smile, bright and mean at the same time. "Gits!" the smile communicated, no words required.

Snape lifted both his legs on the table, considering a pair of ugliest worn out trainers he had ever seen. At least they were black. He applauded and cheered loudly in direction of the two musicians, at the same time pulling another big sip of whisky from the bottle. He even whistled to Bellatrix who was again dancing, as did some other guests. Lucius sat mesmerized at the bar.

 _We are in this together,_ he thought, starting to see Val as a long lost sister, feeling almost as an over-aged Marauder. _We have just played a prank on two most prominent pure-blooded Death Eaters, who are now drinking Muggle whisky and dancing to Muggle music, unknowingly. And we did it together. Merlin, we were even there to rescue someone jettisoned by the Veil!_ Severus was under no illusion; their guest arrived by the will of the Veil and not as a consequence of their failed efforts to call Sirius back from the dead.

Severus felt ludicrous. He leaned back in his chair careful not to let the girl they retrieved slide to the floor. Who was she? What were they going to do with her?

Grinning like a maniac, invaded by music, Severus Snape finally succumbed to dreamless sleep. He didn't see it happening, but the stranger from the Veil fell neatly on top of him as if he was the most comfortable couch.

It was 8 am.

Summer school holidays have officially begun. Albus Dumbledore was dead. And Ariana Dumbledore was back among the living, if only temporarily.


	9. Family Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius is again owned by his family

Sirius Black stood determined in front of a line of beautiful old fashioned Muggle houses in London, wand at ready.

The place looked well maintained compared to the last time he had seen it, some seventy years in the future. Two houses moved lazily apart revealing the familiar shape of the Black family residence on Number 12 Grimmauld Place, looming ominously among its somewhat less impressive, but also far less gloomy non-magical neighbours. More gentle than ever before, the last of the Blacks pressed the snake-shaped door handle and entered carefully, not to disturb the foreboding silence.

In the hall he repelled a Bogart, a colony of Pixies and one much nastier dark creature, which tried to bite his leg off, that he didn't even recognize. At least his mother's portrait was not hanging on the wall because she had yet to be born. Grateful for meeting only magical creatures for a start, Sirius wondered about the best way to fight off his living ancestors once he would unavoidably meet them as well.

Grandfather Arcturus was most probably the head of the family at that time as great-grandfather Sirius turned mad before the age of 40. _Just like I almost did_ , Sirius thought angrily, wondering if he was finally going to follow his namesake on the path to insanity and finish his days as an anonymous patient in St Mungos institute for magical illnesses in the early 20th century. He swallowed remembering the pleasant character of grandfather Arcturus – Sirius was sure that he would kill the intruder in the family house on the spot and ask questions later.

He silently climbed the stairs towards the main living area with all intention to surprise his relatives, duel them into submission and lock them up in a broom cupboard. The next step would be to steal the relevant parts of the family library and hide somewhere safe as Padfoot to read through them. James never learned how to read in his Animagus form and Sirius was glad he could do it, even if unrolling parchments and opening pages with front paws was a daunting task.

The plan was pure adrenaline and Dumbledore would criticise him for it, no doubt, but that would be the Dumbledore from the future. The young man he had seen a few days ago seemed at least as reckless as Sirius always was and had been, if not more.

Sirius should have known that simple plans would never work against the Black family. If nothing else, the fact that he had been killed by his own cousin should have taught him not to underestimate them. He jumped aside immediately after opening the living room door, dodging the killing curse sent his way, probably by grandfather Arcturus, who otherwise seemed to be enjoying having his tea with his pregnant wife.

 _My aunt,_ Sirius thought, _she will give life to aunt Lucretia in a few months._ Sirius's grandmother, Melania Black born McMillan, died of dragonpox long before Sirius was born.

One hour later the room looked like a battlefield with broken glassware and ruined family heirlooms scattered here and there. Sirius thanked his dog reflexes for successfully escaping another deadly curse when he yelled Expelliarmus and finally disarmed his grandfather. Drenched in stinky sweat he made sure that both grandparents were properly tied and gagged in the corner, wands safely away and enchanted against summoning, while Sirius went searching for the nearest broom cupboard.

It felt reassuring to be in control of one's family.

Sirius walked on tiptoes, bent on avoiding Kreacher at all costs. He was afraid of the Elf's magic more than that of his family, and quite unwilling to test the hypothesis that he was Kreacher's Master as much as Arcturus was, even if out of time, so Kreacher theoretically should not be able to hurt him.

The stairs to the attic suddenly drew his attention. He remembered seeking shelter among the cobwebs and discarded dark objects as a child, lost between items thought of as having no further meaning, banished from the family collection. They were all as abandoned as a lonely black-haired boy wandering among them, eager to make new discoveries. Some of them caused him rashes and burns if he ventured into exploring them, but they were still much friendlier to him than any living member of his closest family.

 _No harm can come from taking a look,_ he thought. Had there been any other relatives around, they would have cursed him by now and Kreacher could be heard making noises in the kitchen, all the way down in the basement, and as far away from the attic as possible.

 _Constant vigilance_ , he told himself ironically several seconds later, when he was hanging upside down from the ceiling beams, wrapped in bandages like a mummy, and most unsure about what had happened to him. From the angle in which he was hanging, he could discern a pair of legs in elegant black velvet trousers. He painfully pushed his head forward, trying to look up and see to whom the legs belonged.

He discerned a pair of old aristocratic hands with manicured nails holding two wands. High above was a face of a rather old man with typical Black angular features. There were almost no grey hairs in his dark mane, flanking a face with pointed beard and narrow expressionless blue eyes. Sirius realized that the man's eyes were supposed to be sharp of expression and brown in colour in the portraits Sirius had seen. The unnaturally calm, pale blue gaze had a much more sinister cause than the Black genes which left a touch of clear mountain spring water colour in the eyes of Sirius, Bellatrix and so many others.

The old man was blind.

Those eyes should have been brown, like Regulus's eyes, _my dead brother's eyes_. The eyes above him were dead in life. So pale and so expressionless.

At that moment Sirius shivered and knew without any doubt who the old man was. Feeling the dark magic bonds strangulating him like invisible anacondas, he managed to squeeze out,

"Great-great-grandfather…"

Choking stopped but the grip of bandages didn't get any less tight.

"And who would you be?" said the old man in a righteous rage. "I smelled you coming since you crossed the doorstep! Well I guess that disarming my grandson and his silly wife should not have proven too difficult for a competent wizard..."

Sirius fought for air as the bonds tightened. Mind desperately searching for an argument that would set him free from a deadly embrace, he blurted, "I'm a Black! You wouldn't kill the Black heir, would you?"

"Heir?" the grip on Sirius felt uncertain. "My heir is an idiot gagged downstairs and I don't have any grandchildren."

"Not yet, great-great-grandfather, that's the keyword in this case. If you could see me, you'd know. Your name is Phineas Nigellus and you were the most hated Headmaster of Hogwarts. Your firstborn son is called Sirius and your grandson Arcturus. He will have a son called Orion. Orion will have a son called Sirius Orion. Me. I'm your great-great-grandson. You've never seen me because you died in 1925," Sirius repented on the last sentence as it inadvertently left his mouth, realising it may have not been the brightest idea to break to Phineas Nigellus the news of his imminent death.

"Anyone knows who I am and how my son and grandson are called. It will take more than that to convince me that you are telling the truth," said the blind man, disdainfully.

Sirius thanked Merlin for the unwilling lessons in family genealogy he received as a child and proceeded with listing all ancestors of Phineas Nigellus as far as he knew into the past in a most neutral tone he could muster, keeping the rage still boiling inside him at bay. The bile in his throat was threatening to drown him, ever since the Veil engulfed Ariana and swallowed her like a fancy desert on a Yule feast. After covering a few centuries of ancestors, causing no reaction at all in the old man, Sirius grew very weary. It was time to set the pride aside.

So first he paused, and then he begged, as humbly as he could, "Please, great-great-grandfather, I need your help!"

"And why would you be asking for my help after your intrusion in here?"

"Because against my own personal wishes in that matter, I am a Black," Sirius spoke with difficulty. "Moreover, I am the last living male Black, which should normally mean something to the pure-blooded maniac like you. If it doesn't, you can kill me anyway. It would be the second time that a family member kills me for being who I am. But since you defeated me, you might be the only one of my other living relatives intelligent enough to help me."

The old man said flatly, "I wish my son Sirius had the same amount of Black temper as you have, young man."

"Then you believe me?"

"I knew you were a Black ever since you opened the attic door. You stepped over the Doxy-infested door mat in front of it. Only family and Kreacher would spontaneously avoid such traps in this house," the old man explained with some mirth in his voice. "But I still have many questions."

"I will answer all your questions if you keep my being here a secret from the rest of the family," Sirius decided to use the window of opportunity presented by his ancestor's moment of doubt. "I offer myself to be used as a test subject for the experiments in dark magic you are most probably conducting if the family legends are true. But only if you help me in exchange."

"Would you trust me to help you, if I accepted your terms?" Phineas Nigellus Black asked, his cold voice betraying great curiosity.

"No, but I don't have a choice."

Phineas Nigellus grinned and released Sirius from the mortal hold. "We have a deal. Tell me what you want."

With a sore head from falling right on top of it, Sirius considered that, while trust was never to be given lightly to any member of the Black family, he would have to work with the old man: "I need to return to the future. To the year 1996, where I come from. I have to find someone there."

Sirius carefully skipped any mention of his other equally important project to help murder Lord Voldemort and all his pure-blooded followers, which included several Black family members.

"How sweet!" Phineas Nigellus snorted in contempt. "Now tell me the real reason."

"Why, of course, to exterminate all arrogant silly pure-bloods including myself and make the wizarding world a better place!" Sirius barked, remembering painfully all over again one of his first conversations with Ariana when she asked him, in all innocence, if he was a wizard. "That is the only cause I would live for if I had never met Ariana Dumbledore…"

"You met Percival's daughter? I heard they were keeping her locked up somewhere," Phineas Nigellus tugged his beard looking more and more uncertain about how to treat his unexpected guest. "The Dumbledore family has grown very peculiar since Percival and Kendra died. Fishy, a wizard could say. And then the society gossips about us the Blacks who are not half as unusual…"

"I don't care about the other Dumbledores!" Sirius yelled back, bluntly.

"Percival was an old friend of mine. I will pretend that I didn't hear what you just said and I will help you for his sake," the old man finally said, as if that was the end of a discussion which never occurred to start with. The former Headmaster of Hogwarts must have been used to have the last word in everything.

Sirius pondered what pretending could mean while Phineas went to the back of the attic and returned with a very old but impeccably preserved scroll of parchment entitled _"Illegal and Untested Transportation Devices for Witch and Wizard, Bouncing Through Space and Time: Enchanted Animals, Crystal Time Bubbles, Veils of Death and many more."_

"This work may be of interest to you. However, before we proceed, you have to do me a favour. I am due to appear at the ball this evening, in Malfoy Manor, offered by my young friend Abraxas. Since Arcturus is _indisposed_ to accompany me, you could take his place. I hope that you look similar enough that we don't have to borrow Polyjuice Potion for the occasion."

"No worries there," Sirius chuckled. "We all look alike. I'll just borrow his robes for tonight and you have to fill me in a little bit on how he would normally behave. I've known him as a nasty old man but I have no idea how he was in his youth."

"Well, there is this catch," Phineas continued, somewhat abashed, "Arcturus is a natural charmer."

Sirius grinned and commented wickedly, "My charming ability is a bit rusty, but I think I can manage"

"I need you to dance with and keep occupied at all times a particularly ugly and evil young girl of high society, so that she doesn't _pester_ me while I'm concluding a business arrangement with Abraxas... One that could be also beneficial for your plans, but I cannot tell you more at this stage... The young lady in question believes that I am a dotard, a weak-minded, ancient pure-blood who would marry her for her youth and give her the social prestige she is so badly lacking. I am sure she would poison me if I was stupid enough to marry her, and she persecutes me mercilessly at every social occasion. "

"That doesn't seem too difficult," Sirius was pleased with the task which seemed almost too easy for a wizard with his reputation among witches... There had to be a catch. "What's the lady's name?"

"Dolores Jane Umbridge."

"I'll take that back. I'd rather go out with cousin Bella!" Sirius turned quite loud expressing his rather sudden change of heart in earnest.

"Who's that?

"Never mind. You wouldn't know. A pearl of the Black family some time from now," Sirius felt slightly sick at the thought of his would-be murderer.

"Umbridge, Sirius. Can you do it?

"I believe so," Sirius said, resigned to his fate.

"Good."

"But I want something in return first," Sirius added rapidly. Phineas raised an eyebrow within the European Committee as his great-great-grandson formulated his demand, "Tell me what you know about Ariana and her family!"

"Why should I? You said yourself you didn't care about the Dumbledores..." Phineas Nigellus replied with contempt, or as though he were bored to the extreme. Yet his empty eyes narrowed dangerously in complete contradiction with his voice.

"You want a deal with Malfoy? Start talking. Otherwise the deal is off," Sirius said in the coldest and most disdainful manner of speaking he was able to learn from his father. He hated using that particular tone with all his heart, but he knew it was necessary.

Phineas Nigellus sighed and turned away, "Right..."

After a long pause in which both men seemed undecided on how to proceed, the old man slowly took a seat at his large desk, a rock of solid wood under enchanted flying model of the starry skies above the northern Earth hemisphere, which he must have been studying before Sirius interrupted him.

"It's not a nice story, Sirius," he finally said.

The stars made tender metallic noises following their trajectory, a sea of sounds acting as the eyes of the old man. Sirius took this as a sign to seat opposite to Phineas, feigning respect, with the usual sickening feeling of being the endangered species in the family stuck inconveniently somewhere in his lungs. Yet he did his best to utter what he hoped to be an encouraging grunt, overwhelmed with patience very uncharacteristic for Sirius, as he waited for the whole story about Ariana to come to the light of the day, or more precisely, to the dimness of the attic.

The last glow of the afternoon sun crept secretly through the small window, in fear of two men contemplating each other as mortal enemies.

"Percival was a powerful and admired wizard, famous for collecting and exploring ancient magic artifacts. He was well over fifty when he started a family, it's hard to know exactly how old. They live tremendously long, most of these Dumbledores... unless they succumb to causes which are not _natural_. They don't keep the family tree and they never tell you their real age," Phineas chatted on, appearing indifferent to the subject, as if he were discussing the latest advances in Herbology.

"And so it happened that Percival married a Muggle born, an excellent woman, called Kendra, and they had three beautiful children, two sons Albus and Aberforth, and a daughter called Ariana. Their life was like a fairytale, they were a model magical family. Until one day three Muggle boys attacked Ariana while she was playing outside her house next to the river. She was seven years old... What they did to her... Right, how to say it, she got really hurt... She was... She was tortured and _dishonoured_ , never to be married..."

Sirius disagreed strongly with the last statement, knowing better.  _I dishonoured you, Ariana, if the most natural act to occur between a witch and a wizard who are fond of each other can be called that way..._

Silence wasn't easy for a man like Sirius, but he did keep his mouth shut because he didn't want Phineas to stop telling the story. After all, he was seventy years in the past and even in his time some wizards had very strange opinions about sex before marriage. Sirius could only start imagining how far the decent wizarding society would go in despising a supposedly dishonoured witch in 1925. The prejudice must have been much stronger in that time, especially among pure-blooded families.

"But that was not the worst of it... They broke something in her being, turned her into a hollow shell, incapable to use magic, yet she was not quite a Squib... She became dangerous, totally dependent on her family to take care of her not to cause harm. She never went to Hogwarts, never received her letter," Phineas expression darkened as he spoke, almost as if he cared for Ariana.

 _Definitely not a trait wizarding history would remember him for_ , thought Sirius, keeping his views wisely for himself.

"Percival believed she could have been even more talented than Albus," the old wizard's voice was now lined with the emotion Sirius knew well, implacable hatred, but towards what, Sirius could not tell.

Phineas continued the tale forcing his voice into the usual aloofness. His moment of weakness, if that was what it was, passed. "Percival liked Muggles, he was nothing like Arcturus, nothing like I am. He admired them. He wrote a book about magical Muggle artifacts after an extensive study of several items with magical properties, labelled "miracles" by the Muggles. He even explored further and made theories about this rather bizarre term, claiming it had validity even from a wizarding point of view..."

As one stating a simple truth the old man concluded, "There are no miracles, Sirius. There are only magical occurrences that Muggles cannot explain."

"Lesson number one in Muggle studies in Hogwarts, in my time", Sirius said, trying to sound serious. Agreeing with Phineas on an innocuous truth could be helpful.

"I am glad to see that they haven't changed my curriculum in all that time," Phineas was proud. "Be as it may, old Percival wouldn't hurt a fly. Despite his great magical prowess, he had never used an Unforgivable curse in his life until the day that changed everything for his family."

"A few months after Ariana had been attacked and when it became obvious that the best healers could not help her, Percival lost it. He went after the Muggles and turned them into bags of blood and bones not to be recognised by their nearest kin."

"They were young boys, not yet of age, the oldest one was 16 years old."

"Percival died soon after that."

At that point of the story Sirius had to grip the chair to remain calm, regretting he asked for it, yet unable to rein in his desire to absorb everything there was to learn concerning Ariana.

"And there is still more. Seven years later, when Ariana was fourteen years old, there was an explosion in the Dumbledores' house in Godric's Hollow. Kendra died in the incident and the oldest brother, Albus, who had just graduated from Hogwarts, got custody of Ariana. Gossip soon spread that she had killed her mother, so poor Albus had no choice but to commit her to some kind of mental institution."

Phineas' hands gripped both wands and for a moment Sirius thought that the story would come to an abrupt end, and an Unforgivable curse would be carelessly thrown his way. The effort of the old wizard to calm down was excruciating, requiring the force of will of the highest magnitude when he finally set the wands on the desk, one next to another, and continued his story.

"Trust me, Sirius, Albus was not a good boy, powerful like his father, yes, but with a heart as black as my own. Albus had this friend, no one knows where he found him, but I do not believe he's British, this healer, this charlatan called Greenywald– "

"-Grindelwald!" Sirius interrupted.

"Whatever! The man reeks of Dark Magic or I am not a Black. More importantly, Ariana disappeared a year after her mother's death and the family held a funeral marked with a scandal of Albus and Aberforth physically attacking each other during the service. And I'd bet my fortune, even without hearing your story of how you met her, that she's still alive because no one saw the body. I'd say that Albus and his little foreign friend locked Ariana up, completely away from the world. But no one knows what happened for sure. And no one has heard of Ariana for twelve years."

Immense sadness crept into Sirius like a many-legged monster, pressuring his soul to surrender and fall apart. He realised Ariana's life was worse than his. Sirius may have lost everything when they sent him to Azkaban but she, she had never even had a life. Having seen how Gellert treated Ariana, Sirius doubted that the abuse ended after the Muggle episode of her early childhood.

"I told you it wasn't a nice story," whispered Phineas, sounding just like Sirius felt.

"She asked me if I knew you because we looked similar," Sirius whispered back, a strange complicity filling the space between the two men, occupied until then exclusively by hatred.

"Did she, now?" Phineas Nigellus gave a sad smile. "I'd see her sometimes when I was visiting Percival. She was the brightest little girl you can imagine ... I never knew that she remembered me in any form, the old ugly gentleman annoying her father... "

If Kreacher or Arcturus had come to the attic at that moment they could have easily defeated the two wizards there without any magic, both of them immersed too deeply in the sea of their own sorrows. And Sirius forgot for a second that he could not, not even for one moment, trust Phineas Nigellus Black.

xxxxxxxx

 _Unlike Grimmauld Place, the Malfoy Manor has not changed at all_ , Sirius thought without emotion. He must have been fifteen the last time he attended a ball over there with his parents, stuck in fancy dress robes like a trapped animal, only some months before he would run away from home. Sirius loathed every single ball with the intensity he reserved only for his closest family.

Yet, when he stepped into the main ballroom, helping Phineas Nigellus to find his way, Sirius was strangely affected. Many-candled crystal chandeliers underlined the white and golden brilliance of the place, bathing in light the fragile paintings of clouds and winged beings on the ceiling. White sculpted stucco decorations in form of magical creatures, centaurs, unicorns, dragons and many more, lurked from the walls at the incoming guests. Old fashioned parquet cracked in golden sparks under their feet and delicate antique chairs next to several elegantly rounded tables invited them to rest in the corners.

 _Ariana would find this beautiful,_ Sirius thought, _any girl would_ , he mused.

Ornate windows, fabricated with old colourful hand-made glass, reflected the candlelight and projected scintillating works of abstract art on the walls. Night breeze permeated the old loosely attached glass fragments on many of the windows, but the giggling dancing couples didn't seem to mind or even notice the cold.

Malfoy Manor had an innocent look, not dark in any sense. Arrogant and careless, yes, but certainly not evil, not yet. Sirius accompanied his great-great-grandfather to the drawing room where the old Black would wait until Abraxas Malfoy finished welcoming all his guests and would be free to deal with other matters.

Dolores Umbridge noticed Sirius crossing the ballroom on the way back and immediately stalked him. He offered her his arm, with a lump in his throat, appreciating how at the age of approximately fifteen she was already as ugly as her older version he had seen terrorising Hogwarts as High Inquisitor and impostor Headmistress, when she must have been well over eighty years old.

"Arcturus, I am so pleased to see you! I was hoping to say good evening to your grandfather. Most charming gentlewizard and so intelligent despite his disability..." she went on and on, clutching his hand and pulling him towards the dancing floor with stubby fingers, eyes bulging. The horrid pink dress she wore, resembling a fluffy wall paper, and a matching white-pink purse that looked like it could have been made out of cat's skin, made Sirius queasy. Half of his mind simply ignored Umbridge's existence and just kept on answering her constant "Hem, hem" with a ready if somewhat shorter "Hum, hum". Another half of his mind desperately wished to hold a hand of Ariana Dumbledore.

Since his talk to Phineas Nigellus, his grief for losing her sank somewhere deep. Only positive memories swam forward from the bottom of his mind. Merlin, even if he had lost her forever, he was so happy that the Veil brought him to her of all places, the way she looked at him, the way they cuddled, the way they... Sirius's ears warmed up and he was grateful that his hair had grown again in his latest captivity in case they turned red as well. The daydream was cut short because Umbridge was pushing harder to drag him to the dance floor between offensive comments on half-breeds and magical creatures.

 _The ballroom is perfect_ , Sirius thought, as he imagined taking Ariana by the hand and presenting her to all the guests before taking her in his arms for a proper waltz.

He found himself sipping a glass of wine with Umbridge in front of a large mirror. In the looking glass, a foreigner stared back at him wearing ornate dark purple dress robes. The wizard in the looking glass was strong, healthy and tanned. His long hair was shining. He was not a colourless gaunt creature persecuted by inner demons and alcohol whiffs, that would leer at Sirius from all mirrors in his home prison before his encounter with the Veil.

 _Arcturus will gain new popularity after tonight_ , Sirius thought cynically, trying to suppress his feeling of guilt over being alive and even looking his part again, when so many good people had died. _Stop it_ , he told himself, _focus on the task at hand and you'll be going where you have to be in no time._

He bowed and kissed Umbridge's hand, finally assuming his role, offering her his arm for a dance. The orchestra was playing some sickeningly sweet tune but soon changed to a proper Vienna waltz, the favourite dance of Sirius the child, who adored the vertiginous feeling it would bring. The music was way too fast for Umbridge who was stepping on his feet, until his imagination was no longer enough to tolerate her presence. Her stinking perfume was so close, her poisonous being interfered and spoiled his daydreaming about the happy days in the small house above the sea.

Out of boredom and annoyance, as so many times before, Sirius reverted to Marauders' techniques for dealing with unpleasant situations.

First he cast a Silencing Charm to stop Umbridge from talking. Then he transfigured her face to look like Ariana's with a touch of a mild Concealment Charm so that other guests would not notice it. The charm was not perfect. It could never be with Umbridge being so much shorter than Sirius, but it was the best he could do to survive the evening. The awful girl also protected him from having to talk to other guests and betray his total lack of acquaintance with any of them.

In the middle of the dance Sirius's mind became first dizzy and then blank. _What's going on?_ he thought. _I only had a single glass of wine._

Sirius saw a dim-lit pub, with two hooded figures at the counter. A closer look revealed cousin Bella and cousin-in-law Lucius. Both looked battered, drinking Muggle whisky in Muggle clothing. He heard soft jazz music coming from a stage in the middle, featuring an angular-faced female piano player that looked vaguely like Bella, a few years younger maybe, much more plain, less aristocratic and devoid of any malice, curse, or trace of insanity.

On one of the tables in the front row near the stage, there was a bloke with greasy lank black hair drinking and cheering, legs on the table. Merlin, could it be Snivellus? And on his elongated shoulder slept a familiar female figure Sirius had held in his arms a week ago, completely relaxed.

Sirius felt anger swelling, but his suffering didn't last for long because the girl stood up, walked towards him and offered Sirius her hand. Sirius accepted it without the slightest trace of hesitation. A look in the mirror in Malfoy Manor revealed that he was now waltzing with a girl as tall as himself, smelling of wild plants and the sea, in a lovely pale orange evening dress, with a single peach-coloured rose embellishing her hair, arranged elaborately on top of her head. There were no bruises any more on the revealed part of her shoulders and neck.

"Let us say good evening to the other guests," she said, "I'm sure that they all know you. I know them all from my mother's stories and albums and I would very much enjoy to meet them in person."

"Right," Sirius said, unable to refuse her anything, restraining the urge to pull out all the pins and then bury his head in her hair, barely able to remember that he was actually walking with charmed Umbridge and not with Ariana.

They greeted numerous Mulcibers, Rosiers, Averies and to his great surprise also Bones and McKinnons, the pure-blood families opposed to the Death Eaters ideas, who all promptly recognised Sirius as Arcturus Sirius Black.

Sirius Orion Black dared to invite Ariana Dumbledore, because all trace of Umbridge has somehow disappeared from his arms, for another dance, precisely at the moment when the orchestra announced that they would be playing " _The Vampire's Tango_ ".

Sirius remembered tango lessons from his youth, linked to bittersweet memories of his very first ball in Malfoy Manor when he was eleven years old. He remembered a self-conscious Bella in a simple green dress appropriate for an engagement ceremony, leaning on her younger sister Andromeda, confident and stunning in fluttering robes of grey and blue. Regulus and Narcissa ran over the dancing floor from the sides where they were supposed to stand with respective parents, and started playing hide and seek among guests until they were disciplined. Regulus was so happy and Narcissa not yet poised as she was going to become. Sirius hid behind a curtain and secretly admired Bella's fiancée's Rodolphus' confidence as the couple performed complex tango figures to the delight and fake smiles of family and friends.

 _How did we all lose our innocence_ , he thought, with silent knowledge that not a single one of the Black children escaped unharmed from the future. Bella went mad and became a murderer. Andromeda's daughter was risking her life every day as an Auror. Narcissa's marriage made her cold-hearted and stiff ... and Regulus... his younger brother ... died after he changed his mind about being a Death Eater He was barely more than a boy.

Sirius wanted to stop thinking about them all, about the potential that went to waste because of the rise to power of one Tom Riddle and the silly personal choices most of them had made. They would be by no means the only family decimated by the war and he only hoped that Tom Riddle would follow them on the path to extinction, which was, when it came to the Blacks, probably the best course of action in any case, if anyone asked Sirius for his honest opinion.

The Malfoy Manor was an ocean of sounds when Sirius started to dance with Ariana again, eyes locked with hers, noticing immediately the air of discomfort in her attitude. With distinct impression that she wanted to run away, he held her in a tight, but completely proper and chaste embrace.

"I lied to you, Sirius," she said with a small voice of reason.

"About what?" he wanted to know as they made a sharp turn on the floor and he bent her backwards as the dance required, enjoying every step they made together.

"I didn't correct your assumption that you died," Ariana stepped on his toes and blushed.

Making another sharp turn he asked, frightened, about the other thing, "Was everything else also a lie?"

Ariana whispered, "What do you think?"

Sirius was uncertain and he had to tread on uneasy ground, not finding words. "When I... when we... I'm sorry. I ... "

Ariana's face turned sad. "It's all right. I understand. You'll find a girl with her honour intact one day-"

"NO! Never! What we... I mean ... you never... besides who cares if you did... I mean... what we did together ... was not the same ... "

"Right," Ariana murmured. "Listen, Sirius, I never went to a ball before. Not even in my dreams. Don't spoil my dream by telling me the truth now. Let's just dance."

So they danced, their legs getting tired, his arm safely on her back until their thoughts swirled and mingled like their bodies and the music stopped playing. Sirius escorted Ariana out to the terrace to get some air, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving from the other guests when passing by, completely oblivious to the path they had to cross to arrive on the outside.

Merlin, how he wanted to kiss her! She nervously looked away, to the floor and into the darkness. The night was black and empty, starless and dull, a proper night for mischief rather than love. He took her face in his hands and she allowed it.

He wanted her so badly to be real.

Ariana's eyes glittered sharply before darkening and changing shape.

Beautiful pale orange dress faded into repulsive pink. The magic ended with the music and the grandfather's clock in one of the adjacent rooms cheerfully sounded two times. It was two o'clock in the morning and they must have danced for hours.

Sirius opened his eyes from noise, a second before he would end up kissing a very flushed Umbridge. Realising that his Marauder charms wore off, he managed to stop just on time. He heard Umbridge squeak, "OH! Uh! Oh my... You're so naughty... Arcturus!"

Positively disgusted and sick of both his visions and his reality, all social pretence gone, Sirius reached for his wand. He stunned Umbridge and stumbled away from the terrace, blinded with unshed tears. Back in the corridors of the Malfoy Mannor, he could not find the way back to the ballroom. All rooms looked the same and the passages seemed to change directions as if he had been walking on the moving stairways of Hogwarts.

After a while, he ended in front of the drawing room where he had left his great-great-grandfather, who was now engaged in deep discussion with their host.

"Are you sure that it works?" Phineas asked shrewdly.

"Only one way to know," Malfoy answered dryly. "It's the latest model device of this kind produced in continental Europe and very promising for your research. What I'm asking for is a small price to pay."

"I'm sure it'll be much more reliable than the flying cats or carpets ..." Phineas Nigellus gave an evil smirk.

"Most certainly, I would say. I will have it delivered to you tomorrow. I hope that you will live long enough to test it and tell me all about it." Abraxas sounded as if he wished exactly the opposite.

Sirius ran away when he heard footsteps approaching the door. The deal was apparently done and Sirius had to collect and Obliviate Umbridge before returning _home,_ to Grimmauld Place.

Instead of reaching the terrace where he left her, he got lost again and ended up in a long dark corridor where all doors looked the same and caused him uneasiness, just the like doors in the Department of Mysteries. The only difference was that there were no ghosts surging from crystal balls filled with prophecies in the process of breaking. And, most fortunately, cousin Bellatrix had yet to grace the world with her unique presence.

He opened a door in the very back, hoping it led to the terrace. Instead, he faced a huge crystal sphere floating in the middle of the room. It was rotating in a slow motion, surrounded with a purple energy field, similar in colour to the one Ariana was attacked with by Grindewald on two occasions.

Crucified within the sphere, arms and legs stretched in all directions in a way which must have been a source of constant and rather strong pain, hung Professor Severus Snape.

Sirius considered blasting the greasy git's apparition and go on searching for Umbridge. Then he remembered one of his new life resolutions to think (a bit more than usual) and ask pertinent questions before acting, so he opted for talking.

"Have you recently been in a pub with a witch who slept on your shoulder, Snivellus?"


	10. Fifty Points for Slytherin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Snape finally figures some things out

Severus Tobias Snape woke up in pain, unable to move his arms or legs. The hangover didn't help his mood, much more foul than habitually. He always detested when he would get drunk like his father. Mostly he didn't drink at all. On top of that, he was stretched like a human four-pointed star to fit in a strange transparent sphere, which revolved in excruciatingly slow motion. He immediately suppressed the feeling of dread and uncertainty to the abyss of his Occluded mind.

"Bella, I still insist that this is not a good idea," a familiar voice drooled calmly with only a little bit of apprehension.

"Come on, Lucius, we were all summoned to wait here for the Dark Lord. We only gave our associate a lift. He wouldn't want to miss our Lord's calling for being high on healing potions …" hatred was apparent in a high-pitched, lunatic female voice. Severus felt that his head was going to burst from the dizzy movement of the device he had been inserted in.

"I'm sure that dear Severus who is, oh, so valuable for his research and intelligence contribution to our cause would have volunteered, oh, so gladly, to test a new time-travelling device you recovered among your family heirlooms. Preferably before our Master arrives and demands answers after seeing the discovery in your incompetent mind, Lucius!" Bella continued as if she was lecturing a five year old.

Severus unwillingly allowed himself an inward admission that she may have had a point in her assertions.

"Still, we took him unconscious, obviously he suffered more severe injuries when killing Dumbledore than he let appear," the man's voice echoed in Severus's hurting head as an exploding Erumpent Horn.

"Your father's notes mention that the test individual should be relaxed, unconscious or in a deep sleep to travel safely, I really see no reason to worry…" It sounded as if Bellatrix would be more than thrilled if the experiment ended in Severus's unexpected death. At least the male voice complained no more and the pounding in Snape's head lessened to a bearable level.

The world started spinning.

Severus struggled helplessly to get out, but the dreadful dizzy swirling addled his brains. He closed his eyes not to humiliate himself by puking all over.

When he opened them, he could still not move, but at least the device he was crucified in stopped turning. He was alone in the middle of a dark room in front of a large old fashioned window with coloured green glass opening to a garden on a black, almost starless night. There was no sign of Lucius or Bellatrix. He remained calm, finding that his new surroundings had a calming effect to the condition of his body after a sleepless night and overall intoxication.

He remembered the scene at Val's shop, which turned into a bar and then, there was music. The music! It had been wondrous... He longed to hear it once again.

Logically, Val had to leave him to Lucius and Bellatrix if his Mark started burning. He believed less and less that the Dark Mark Val had shown him was real, meaning that she could not have accompanied him to the presence of the Dark Lord.

His musings were cut short by the sound of fast, yet heavy steps, scurrying down the corridor. Soon, a tall figure barged in with a theatrical swish of lavish dark red dress robes.

"Have you recently been in a pub with a witch who slept on your shoulder, Snivellus?" spoke the familiar, should-be-dead voice of Sirius Black.

Snape considered speaking but anything he said could be monitored by Bella from afar so he just nodded twice, almost breaking his neck with exertion. Then he gave Black his most despising look, hoping it would make him shut up or realise he had to find a safer way of communication as well.

To his surprise, Black nodded twice as well, before grinning like an idiot. Was it possible that the moron actually understood him answering "yes"? How did he know about the woman they retrieved from the Veil?

Severus risked forming words "Malfoy Manor" with his lips, all the while rolling his eyes and pulling faces to appear sick in case Bella and Lucius were watching. The charade didn't require too much effort. He was feeling reasonably ill already.

Black nodded twice again, than tugged a heavy green curtain and started making and unmaking knots in numerical series, pretending he was gazing at the landscape and adjusting his robes in the mirror as a true arrogant pure-blood would do.

 _Merlin bless vanity_ , Severus thought and counted the knots. One, than nine, than two, than five. Black was in 1925! Severus nodded twice in understanding and then opened his mouth trying to appear mad to potential public, willing some foam out of his mouth with a help of a silent and very accurately self-inflicted Seizure Hex. At least Bella didn't snatch his wand. He was however reluctant to try more complex spells while being in the device of obviously highly experimental nature.

Black seemed to be impersonating one of his ancestors, older, with typical facial features of the family. He appeared uncharacteristically calm and composed. The only thing left of the lavish Gryffindor behaviour, apart from the arrogant voice with which he initially spoke, was a fiercely determined look in his eyes, confirming to Snape that he was not in the presence of an impostor. As far as Severus was aware, Sirius had been the only Black in the known history of the family sorted into Gryffindor.

Black uttered, without sound, "She lives?"

Severus nodded twice and asked with his lips, "You?"

Before Black could make any further signs, Snape felt the sphere spinning again. The unstoppable desire to retch returned in full force. He opened his eyes and saw Bellatrix and Lucius clearer than he would have wanted from the corner of his left eye, realising he was hanging upside down.

The oppressive summer heat lingered in the room just like it did before his conversation with not so dead Sirius took place. He could discern elegant curves of furniture in Lucius's private studio. His Death Eater colleagues looked perfectly bored. Snape was almost convinced that they had not witnessed the rather unusually civil dialogue that had just taken place between him and Black of all wizards.

When they turned him back to upright position, and when the straps holding him in place snapped open, he tried to walk out of the damnable contraption with dignity. He managed three steps and a sneer towards Bellatrix. Wishing to pronounce some words of contempt, he finally released the contents of his stomach all over the expensive-looking carpet. _Narcissa won't be pleased._ He pitied Malfoy's House Elves for a moment and  immediately straightened his posture.

After cleaning the mess with his wand, he was finally able to express his thoughts with the appropriate dose of poison in his voice. "Bella, Lucius, I am delighted to be the victim of your little experiment. I hope you have something of value to report to the Dark Lord. Or shall I proceed to inform him that you attempted to murder me for fun?"

"We were testing my father's experimental time-travel machine. It was stolen long time ago by Albus Dumbledore and I retrieved it from Hogwarts after his death. I had my father's notes all the time, they recommend a sleeping test subject…" Lucius hurried up to explain their actions and to volunteer a heap of paper, wrinkled as if a cow had just ruminated on it. "I wanted to be able to brief the Dark Lord who should come at any moment about the potential of this artifact."

Bella grasped Snape's arm and shrieked desperately, "Don't you remember anything, Snapey boy? Been somewhere, talked to someone? "

Snape considered he should better offer some of the truth as they could all find it useful to keep the Dark Lord moderately happy. His thoughts roamed briefly from Val's father playing his trumpet, pure joy hovering in the air, to the imminent wrath of Voldemort.

 _No,_ thought Severus, _I'm alive, I've got many things to do and this day is entirely too beautiful to receive punishments._

"Well, Lucius, it was as if I were in this same room at night. The furniture was different and there were, I believe, green curtains. It smelled like the old fashioned Wizarding-Wheeze-Powder my mother used against magical infestations. I cannot be sure, but it is possible that I was in this same room in another period of time, probably in the past. I haven't noticed any person besides myself but I'm not completely sure, the surroundings were covered with haze."

"See, I told you, Lucius! We had to try!" Bella was triumphal and Snape thought how terribly similar she was in her rampage to her rebel cousin Sirius who could become equally delirious about some more noble absurd proposition, for example, selfless dying to save his friends.

 _They had to try, indeed,_ Severus mused. Bella was not entirely stupid. Killing Severus may have been an extra bonus to her in private, but she was right that the Dark Lord would immediately want some information about a time-travel device that had been found.

The Dark Lord soon graced his most faithful followers with his presence in the great hall of the Malfoy Manor, which used to be a ballroom in better times. Sinking to his knees, Severus pushed to the back of his mind his own desire to murder him then and there. _It can't be done until Potter does his part._.. He buried even deeper the desire he was hiding even from himself to ask Ignotus Peverell for trumpet playing lessons on the next occasion he would see him. Bringing forward his very real fear of Voldemort, he bowed deeply and kissed the hem of his robes.

Somewhere, wherever, under, his overly vivid and always curious mind was calculating the odds of dying uselessly on such a beautiful day...

Lucius illustrated his great diplomatic skills reporting to Voldemort about the time-travel machine with just adequate level of subservience, while Bellatrix was gazing at their Master with mute devotion, her black heart in the palm of her hand.

Severus once walked upon them and saw with his own eyes a pair of snake-like hands purposefully leaving fresh scars in her pale soft flesh, already a bit aged and tainted by the hardship of Azkaban and the first war. Since that day he felt a minimum of compassion for Bella. Snape may have loved a dead woman over her grave, but he would never, not in his weakest moment of self-pity, consider having an affair with a living corpse such as Voldemort's. He'd rather share a bed with the Dark Lord's snake, in firm belief that Nagini would provide more warmth and acceptance than her Master.

Snape suppressed another consideration better kept to oneself; Bella's infatuation with the monster they called Master was one more proof of Bella's likeness to Sirius. They were both loyal beyond reason.

"Interesting, Lucius. What you're saying has perspective. I entrust you to conduct further research on this object. If you can come with the reliable time-travel method to any period further back in time than the current Time Turners can achieve I will be most pleased," Voldemort said in a silky, treacherous voice.

"Thank you, my Lord," Lucius was shaking, still weak from the punishment he received the night before, and also because he was experiencing a growing certainty that another failure would cost him his life. After all, Voldemort's civility was known to be way deadlier than his anger.

"It has come to my attention that the Veil of Death in the Ministry could also be a time travel device. Severus, I believe you already started your investigation. Perhaps you should continue." Commanding him in a flat tone, Voldemort remembered Snape.

"Yes, Master. My preliminary study indicates that the Veil could be a medium for long distance travel either in space or in time, but I failed to identify the mechanism by which to determine one's destination. At present state the destination is unknown," Severus tried to be helpful without giving too much information to Voldemort, because first of all, he didn't want to disclose any. Secondly, he was well aware that the Dark Lord would get annoyed if anybody tried to tutor him. One always had to let Tom Riddle Junior take the lead and draw his own conclusions in order to survive.

To his great misfortune, Severus mentioned the space travel, an element that Voldemort apparently hadn't considered yet. Cruciatus curse struck him like a shock wave and didn't leave him until he squealed like a wounded animal at his Master's feet. _Albus,_ he sobbed inwardly, too proud to let his tears be seen, _I wish you were waiting for me somewhere down the road to call me my boy again when all this is over._

"Severus, I thought you knew better than to displease me. Rise!" Severus rose despite that one of his legs had just been broken, ignoring the pain as best he could.

"As of tomorrow you will be nominated the Headmaster of Hogwarts. The Ministry will have the Veil of Death delivered to the Headmaster's office for further study. None of the students or staff shall have access to it."

Severus nodded and thanked Merlin for the hangover from the previous night. Unpleasant as it was, it numbed his body, somewhat dulling the sensation of standing with a broken leg.

Eventually, Voldemort turned to Bella who was still at his feet clutching the minuscule part of his robes that lingered next to her face as a most precious gift. "Oh, Bella dear, I am quite tired with you and your new habit of visiting our hospital. Bring me the hospital owner and his Muggle foster daughter! It is time to remind him where his loyalties lie."

When Bellatrix left, Voldemort released a careless laugh of a criminal who just got away with his misdeed and healed Severus's leg with a flick of his wand.

"On your knees!" he shouted. "Thank your Master!"

After what seemed an eternity of kneeling, Severus stood up, hoping he would be allowed to leave. Voldemort waved him to go and Snape walked out calmly, only to start sprinting as fast as he could in his condition as soon as he was out of Voldemort's sight. He had to Apparate and warn the Peverells!

But it was too late.

Bellatrix had already returned, cackling like mad. Judging by the sound she must have dumped Ignotus Peverell and his daughter right at Voldemort's feet. _Always so expedient to satisfy her lover's whims,_ Severus thought, fighting the sickening images of the Dark Lord performing such mundane tasks involving human touch, until they sank deep into his subconscious mind. He really didn't need imagining _them_ doing _that._ Perhaps the students were not entirely wrong when they thought of him as slimy.

Snape returned slowly where he came from. He lurked in from the doorstep, using the fact that Lucius and a few other Death Eaters were also watching the new scene unfold as an excuse to ignore his dismissal.

"Do you remember me, old man?" Voldemort asked.

"How could I forget?" Ignotus Peverell peeped like a rare bird in a completely undignified manner, seemingly unable to look up in sheer fear. His figure was malleable on the edges, present and yet not quite there.

"Best that you don't! You have your uses, for now. But if I hear anything unusual I will reveal your condition to the Ministry while that pitiful institution still exists!"

Voldemort continued cynically, "Imagine, in Britain there are regulations against both your kind and the kind of things you could do in the past. How inconvenient that the technique dies with you – you sired no children of your blood and you call this Muggle scum you picked up from the streets your daughter!"

Ignotus remained submissive and Val looked ill, crumpled on the floor next to her father, as fragile as after she had projected an image of immaculate green meadow to appease Snape's troubled mind.

The Dark Lord underlined every word with endless malice, "But you've almost had a pure blood child, haven't you, Ignotus. Well, nevermore! Do leave your foster daughter with us here for the afternoon party Lucius will be hosting after lunch. Miss Peverell, I am afraid that we're in dire need of some serving personnel..."

Snape could swear that at that very moment Ignotus Peverell nearly dissolved into fine smoke nowhere to be seen, despite the Anti-Apparition wards in full force in the Manor, but in the next second he could be seen glaring at the Dark Lord with strangely pleading eyes. Voldemort rapidly twisted his wand in a lavish theatrical move and Peverell disappeared for good. Severus was not sure if Voldemort had just cursed Peverell to go away or if Val's father somehow… left of its own accord and volition?

 _Impossible!_ All recent events threatened to overload one brilliant scientific Slytherin mind in search for proper magical explanation of the observed phenomena. While he kept pondering Sirius's appearance, Peverell's disappearance, and an unknown red-haired girl they got out of the Veil, Severus decided, for the first time in his life, to hang around willingly on a Death Eater party in order to keep an eye on Val and to help her out if necessary, especially if she was to become one of the so called Muggle guests. Their bodies would frequently dawn the next day in London sewers or gutters around the Manor. Either was a completely wrong destiny for Val in Severus's expert opinion. Even if he found her constant chattering extremely annoying.

Val was kneeling in front of Voldemort and looking down with humility, when the Dark Lord pulled the electric green pin out of her hair. The feminine trinket was the only item which accompanied both her stage attire for playing and the stern apothecary robes she now appeared to be wearing. Tom Riddle added in an evil voice: "Oh my, almost as beautiful as my lovely Bellatrix. What a treat for my loyal Death Eaters!"

Peverell's daughter could not be called beautiful, not in all honesty, she was rather plain and straightforward as a clear autumn day. And Voldemort was known for lying, but Bellatrix still flinched nervously at the comparison.

Uninvited but welcome, a giant snake slithered from one of the corridors in the direction of the Dark Lord, who petted her distractedly and hissed at her in adoration while she bared her fangs. Val curled up on the floor, crawling a tiny bit in the direction from which the snake had just come, her hair a curtain covering her actions. Snape looked at the waterfall of curls unleashed by Voldemort, fluttering free in the non-existent breeze. Val and Bellatrix had similar wavy textured hair but Severus found that Val's colour was all wrong, just like so many other details about her ways, a rich chestnut brown with some strands of golden blond and others of silvery gray, the hues constantly changing with the light.

Voldemort turned his head away to smile at his snake and no one but Snape alone noticed how a mischievous smile graced Val's angular face for the shortest of moments, combined with the look of total defiance.

When the party finally kicked off, Snape was surprised that Val was not a victim but a simple serving woman passing among guests in the lovely and still well-preserved historic ballroom of the Malfoy Manor, carrying regally a tray with tankards full of cheap ale. _Degrading_ , thought Severus, the true pure-bloods should have been repulsed by this kind of festivity, which in his opinion resembled a type of party Muggles would organise when watching one of their silly sports.

_And the beer is of the worst quality just like most of the guests._

Snape knew then, unmistakably, that Voldemort wanted something very badly from Ignotus Peverell because he let him and his Muggle daughter live for the time being after they have seen from close up the outline of the new Death Eater headquarters in Malfoy Manor. The Dark Lord withdrew into his private room shortly after the start of the party, as if he had suddenly lost all interest in proceedings with Mr Peverell gone.

In the absence of a more intelligent thing to do, Snape went duelling for fun. Remembering the unpleasantness of being in the crystal sphere, he first disarmed Lucius Malfoy, whom he noticed trying to push his son Draco into fighting others, in an unhealthy competition among the Death Eaters to prove who was the worst one of all.

 _Wrong move, Lucius,_ thought Snape, knocking the older Malfoy down as hard as he could short of killing him. He would probably not leave his luxurious bed for very long in the foreseeable future. _This should temporarily provide Draco with some safety from his family and their friends_ , Severus rejoiced inwardly, genuinely pleased with himself for the first time that day.

Realising no one was paying him any attention while the party raged on, Snape grabbed a beer and motioned to Val to follow him. She soon joined him with a drink of her own and they sat peacefully on the floor next to one another, their backs turned to the wall, relaxing together after a risky situation like best friends would do. _But we're not friends._

Snape had no intention to touch his drink. Yet it provided a good cover so he was vanishing it with his wand in regular intervals. Val sipped hers, and looked as if she was actually enjoying his company.

"There used to be respectful social gatherings in this place," Snape sneered when a half-naked Death Eater crawled in front of them on all fours, resembling an untamed animal.

"I guess so," Val said happily. Her eyes flashed green.

"Don't!" Snape protested vehemently, his voice a liquid Draught of the Living Dead.

"What?" interrupted Val.

"Don't do whatever you're doing. Your eyes are simply not green! Don't try to fool me."

Val looked guilty. "Sorry. I could sense you'd wish them to have that colour."

"Are you reading my mind?" Snape asked incredulously.

"Nope. I'm not a witch, remember? I just have premonitions about what people might like. And you really shouldn't complain about it. As I recall, you didn't have a problem reading mine when you had a chance!"

"Just keep your eyes the way they are. There's nothing wrong with them," Snape informed her without a trace of emotion.

Outside the daylight slowly gave way to dusk. They finished their beer in silence and the first guests started departing.

"Let's go," he told her, eager to go back to his privacy once again, but unwilling to leave Val, wondering why he had any consideration for her repulsive personality. Her tiredness was apparently gone to bed with Voldemort. Val suddenly had enough positive energy and enthusiasm left to wake up the dead. She was about to return to her serving and cleaning duties as if there was nothing undignified or abnormal whatsoever about working for the Death Eaters.

Snape snapped and practically dragged her down the empty halls of the Malfoy Manor, through the long abandoned corridors, changing direction and winding away as they walked. His face transformed into a mask of ice, his gestures bordered on cruelty.

Severus wished to ask Val so many questions, he wished that she would give him answers, but perhaps there were none. He found that there rarely were any in life.

Instead of proceeding to the standard Apparition point, he guided her outside the Manor, slowing down their pace when he was satisfied that they were alone and out of sight. He was so bent on getting them both the hell out of there, as far as possible from the devastating presence of the Dark Lord, if only for a while in his case, that he didn't notice that ever since he had taken her with him, contrary to her normal propensity to blabbering, Val didn't say a word.

They walked into the forest together, and then, Severus did the first thing that came into mind. He cursed himself for a spontaneous reaction, yet he did it anyway, because he was just so fed up with everything that had happened to him since he had been emotionally blackmailed to kill Albus Dumbledore.

xxxx

"What do you think you're doing?" Val screamed, finding her voice, when the cold wind coloured her cheeks. She realised she was being surrounded and lifted from the ground by a cloud of thick, greasy black fumes.

"Something I should have done a long time ago with another woman," Snape's silky voice rang among the fumes . "Avoiding the trouble."

The cloud reeked of all spells dark but to fly in it was unbelievably good. Val would never admit that to Severus, but she had never experienced anything remotely similar despite having flown over the ocean in an enchanted house on the back of a dragon.

She stretched her arms in pure joy, firmly anchored in the immaterial dark embrace. The Malfoy Manor rapidly diminished in size below them.

xxxxxx

In the comfort of the Peverell shop the cloud dissolved and regained the form of a dark-clad wizard, who gently put Val down on her feet. Shadows were creeping in the corners and shy light of the sunset was trying to peek in through the sole window on the back side closed by shutters.

Val rubbed her eyes and methodically collected her hair back in the usual bun shape, holding it in place with her left hand. Then she drew out her wand and wielded it with ease, summoning another hair pin from one of the drawers, before turning to face a stoic wizard who couldn't miss the first spell she had ever performed openly in front of his nose.

 _European birch, rather long and pliable, approximately twelve inches, possibly with dragon string core_ , Severus thought in terms of wand lore, flabbergasted.

Calmly, as if nothing of any interest has occurred to her in years, Val asked, "We should check on our guest first, don't you think?"

"What about your father?" Snape wondered.

"He'll come about," Val was strangely at ease, considering that Voldemort may have harmed or even murdered her father from what they could tell. Snape was half-directed, half-forced upstairs into the small bedroom, decorated in black and yellow Hufflepuff colours, where the woman they saved from the Veil slept like an angel, her chest rising slowly with quiet breathing.

"Good," Val said, pleased that their guest was still asleep. "Take a seat, Severus. This might be a long conversation."

Severus took a hint and sat down at the edge of the bed on one side of Ariana's feet because there were no chairs in the room, fidgeting with a piece of star-patterned wrapping paper he carried in his robes since the first day he walked into Peverell and Son. The paper wasn't showing Canis Major at that moment, but another unknown constellation, reminding him of a musical instrument, lute, harp, what was it? He had seen it before every time in the past year when his thoughts would drift from resolving the mystery of the Veil of Death to his obsession to thwart Voldemort in all things. As if a star pattern could help with that!

He regretted many times that Astronomy had not been his favourite subject at school and he wouldn't ask his Astronomy colleague at Hogwarts for help, too proud to let his ignorance in any subject matter be seen by others.

Val joined him in silence on the opposite side of the bed and Severus could no longer keep calm. All crazy thoughts, assumptions and suspicions he nurtured for more than a year poured out in a storm of words, lacking quite a bit of his usual sarcasm and inherent desire to offend.

"You're not a Muggle! Not that I care about all the blood nonsense but you cannot be! You're a dimension shifter! And so is, or was, your father."

Val reacted with a cryptic smile worthy of a sphinx.

Severus regretted voicing his wild theories as soon as they left his mouth, "Obviously, what I just said is impossible. The last one died out many centuries ago and this kind of magic has been forbidden by the Ministry ever since."

"Well done, Severus! Fifty points for Slytherin!" Val reacted, rewarding him with a dry, but surprisingly genuine laugh.

Her reply broke a dam forged by many years of solitude and released another torrent of his words.

"You are one, aren't you? Those fields, they weren't a mental projection, they were a different dimension of reality you created and then you allowed me to step into it. That is actually quite interesting!" A quite ordinary word interesting sounded like the greatest praise from Snape's mouth. "And your father, he's a ghost, isn't he? That's why the Dark Lord couldn't really get to him."

Val lost her usual mocking demeanour. She took both Severus's hands in her own and then they stood together in a perfect green landscape on a warm autumn day.

"Tom Riddle killed my father long time ago. There's nothing much left he can do to him, don't you find?" Val spoke with sadness, still holding his hands.

The conversation was suddenly cut short by a sigh coming from afar. The green melted into dull greyness of the room. They realised that their enthusiasm finally woke up their guest, a disconcerted look on her face.

"What's a dimension shifter?" Ariana asked. "I've never read about it in any of my books."

"They are not supposed to exist any more," Val said quietly, "but my father was one of them."

Severus felt very accomplished and flattered when he heard Val admitting aloud at least one half of the truth.

"And I am one as well," Val concluded, looking uncomfortably exposed toward the unknown woman with beautiful strawberry blond hair, and toward the possibly only wizard who had ever guessed what she was, even if it took him more than a year to figure it out.

"It's a long story," said Ignotus Peverell who suddenly glided in through one of the walls, exhibiting for the first time for all to see his silvery and transparent condition of a ghost.

"We all possess a soul. We all live in many-sided reality. Some of us were born, however, with a very special gift to voluntarily split our world into two or more parallel worlds at the same time. Or with even greater power to move other people and objects with us as we do this."

"When we choose to do this, our magic provides the greatest possible protection. The dimension barrier cannot be passed by those we have left out. The realities created in this way coexist at the same time in the same place, yet they are completely physically separated from one another."

"Take a look at this place. The Muggles are protected in a pub. The wizards see it only as a shop disguised from Muggles by the usual wards to look like a construction site. With the Death Eater hospital hidden in the back, of course, that's the only thing that the wizards eventually discover."

"But such magic cannot be done lightly. No one can sustain it for a long time, for a large place, or for many people. This house has been specially designed over many years to collect the necessary energy from its very walls and materials it's made off in order to keep the shift stable at all times. We are safe here."

"Very few people, those who have harmed their soul voluntarily beyond reason, can get a glimpse through our defences because the loose, broken fragments of their being can jump for a second on the other side. But not even Tom Riddle with his seven times split soul can cross the dimension barrier in this house and fully enter the reality where we don't want him to be as long as we choose not to take him with us."

"What he could obviously do is destruct this place altogether in the dimension accessible to him. But the people in the pub would still be alive and well and would walk out of the door and into the unique reality of the street unharmed. Just that there would be no place for them to return to any more when this pub would be gone."

"My soul..." Severus allowed himself to sigh.

"... is irreparably harmed by your crimes, yes, just like Bella's. Only the two of you could get a glimpse of what was happening among hundreds of wizards who came inside the past year," Val said matter-of-factly.

"If Voldemort ever came, he wouldn't believe you that this is an old spell held together by your house properties! He'd torture Val for information on how it can be done! He'd know! Ghosts cannot cast spells!" Severus yelled, pricked by being compared to Bella. He forgot the annoying confirmation of his personal misgivings that his soul was a lost cause.

"Oh, Tom Riddle is arrogant enough to believe that somehow by keeping me close and threatening my daughter he'll be able to force me to teach him how it can be done. He's a fool to think that I will cooperate, having already made that same mistake once, on the occasion when he ended my life," Ignotus snorted, entirely unimpressed by Snape's aggressive rampage.

"Well he never came," said Val, unafraid. "And if he did, we could manipulate him around the pub area, the permanently shifted part of the premises here is purposefully not too big. He would have to step inside in the middle of the night to sense anything and even then he might perceive even less then Bellatrix did."

"Besides he isn't going much around without his snake any longer, so we put bird eggs in all normal rooms to keep the snake and the master focused on snake's food..." Ignotus produced a perverted smile, almost worthy of a Slytherin.

"What about the stars?" Severus blurted, holding out the wrinkled wrapping paper where the celestial bodies glowed as a lighthouse showing the safe way to the harbour. "You must have returned to England from wherever you actually were before to help Black, why?"

"Sirius Black," Val insisted on accuracy. The paper star pattern turned to Canis Major.

"Sirius?" Ariana asked nervously. "Do you know him?"

"Actually not", said Val. "I was just helping my father, who's bound by a promise he gave a long time ago. Father, you never told me to whom? Today is the day for truths. Maybe you could tell me..."

Val looked pleading and so very young while questioning her father, who slowly went even more transparent than ghosts should normally be and didn't say a word.

After a long silence, Peverell muttered something and returned to his more usual human-looking form. "There, Spiritus Corpus trick will help all of you to feel more human in my presence. So much for being unable to cast spells. To cast a limited number of useful ones is still quite possible. Severus should ask Bloody Baron for more information on that."

"Now, if we could forget my past for the moment, I have some rather bad news for all of you. It would appear that the young lady here has exchanged with Sirius going through the Veil of Death, which functions as a perfect mirror according to my research. One person can travel to a certain point in either space or time and the same person can return. However, if the place is taken by another, the Veil closes and cannot be used again between the same two points."

"I failed to keep my promise."

"Sirius is lost to us but at least he's alive."

"Don't count on it. Black is arrogant and stupid, but also rather dogged in his plans, he might find a solution," Severus disagreed and told them all in few words about his experience of talking to Black from the crystal sphere of Malfoy Manor earlier that day.

"He asked for me?" Ariana interrupted. "Yes, I believe so, Miss … -?"

" – Dumbledore. Ariana Dumbledore. I met Sirius briefly in 1925. I fear I entered the Veil by accident. In my time it looked like a harmless painting. Am I to understand that I arrived to the place of Sirius's origin?"

Her speech was impeccable and old fashioned, her voice musical and clear. Severus nodded to answer her question and couldn't help the impression that Ariana was lying or at least withholding the truth. While that would certainly confirm her identity as a Dumbledore, in a world inhabited by plenty of Death Eaters that assumption had to be checked. And the only possible judge, as far as Snape could tell, was a portrait in the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts.

In the light of all that had happened, Severus felt he could be only slightly surprised with the latest turn of events. He would have remained unimpressed even if the person that had stepped out of the Veil would have been Morgana le Fay.

"The Dark Lord appointed me the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Perhaps I could take Miss Dumbledore with me, for the time being," Severus said, meeting Peverell's nod of approval. Val just shrugged, probably unhappy because her father would not answer her question about Black.

It occurred to Snape that Val had a better chance of receiving some answers if the intruders left the family. And Hogwarts walls would help him to finally put some order into the illogical mess pervading his thoughts in the past two days.

He felt wild remembering the sensation of all pores of his inner darkness being intoxicated by the closeness of Val's body when he allowed himself to engulf her and take them both for a Death Eater's flight. He never tested a possibility of flying something or someone else with him that way and he guessed that only sheer luck saved them from landing on the proverbial behind. He also discovered then that her stern black robes were only an alternate dimension looks for the palpable reality of a tight T-shirt and a pair of jeans she was wearing on the stage, hugging a firm feminine body of unquestionable classical beauty.

It was definitely time for Severus to go home.

"I've always wanted to go to Hogwarts," said Ariana. "Please, take me there."

Mr Peverell turned into an annoying shopkeeper mood again and yelled after them when they left: "Don't forget to come back to us if you need some potion ingredients! We'd be happy to find the very finest for you!"

Val stared at her father full of expectations, but he only disappointed her deeply. Immediately after the departure of their guests, he simply went out through one of the walls.

As if there had been nothing left to say.


	11. The Worst Feature of the Blacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the nature of the ideal time-travel device is revealed

Sirius contemplated the now empty crystal sphere, pondering the cryptic messages of a greasy git and the general lack of order in the world, that luckily gave credit, at least for the time being, to his hopes masked as logical assumptions that Ariana travelled to the time he had originated from. And didn't she somehow join him in his attempt to be civil with Umbridge, coming to him from her dream on Snivellus's shoulder?

After his recent experience with the Veil, Sirius would never again discard seemingly surreal events as imaginary. From what he knew, his daydream was real and they shared a unique connection yet to be explained by ordinary magical ways. _Funny,_ he thought, _how Ariana seemed convinced that she was dreaming about us dancing..._

 _First I, then she. Are we ever going to meet and believe it, both of us?_ Sirius felt blind rage growing at the thought of his girl leaning on Snivellus. The negative emotion dissolved immediately when he allowed himself to plunge back into wonderful certainty that both of them might still be alive.

Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. That was supposed to be impossible.

Yet he had done it. The first and only ever to succeed. A miserable shaggy black dog had trembled on the beach, exhausted, after a long swim from the prison island back to the world of the living. Seventy years distance in time seemed like a minor obstacle in comparison to what he had already gone through. And Sirius was certain that he would do everything in his power and beyond it to find a way to return to his time, no matter the cost.

Determined more than ever to set everything right, Sirius nearly forgot about Umbridge and harm his treatment of her might cause Arcturus Black in 1925. He rightfully jumped to the conclusion that if one grandpa Black was killed, Sirius would not exist either. And Umbridge could be a dangerous enemy. It took him a good hour to find her again in the maze of the Malfoy Manor, lying immobile where he had left her, repulsive fat legs protruding gingerly under heavy pink skirts. He Enervated her and was met with a pair of bulging eyes mooning after his strong figure.

"Thank you for the lovely evening, Mr Black," she managed to squeeze out as if she had just woken up from the most pleasant dream. Sirius silently thanked Merlin that he had never been particularly gifted in Legilimency. He was thus spared the unwilling casual insight in Umbridge's sick mind he could very well continue to exist without.

"It was a pleasure, Miss Umbridge. Alas, my wife is waiting for me, she was indisposed due to her delicate condition and could not come here this evening. It is time that I return to my ancestral home. Allow me to accompany you back to the society," Sirius said, amazed at himself for remembering and accurately using meaningless phrases he was taught in his youth, while mesmerizing all the time in the darkest pit of his mind about silky blonde hair with orange glow, mingled with his raven locks on their bed of rags near the sea.

Sirius did his best to behave as a perfect gentleman to Umbridge for the next ten minutes he had to spend with her, uttering respectful "Hmms" where appropriate. He was relieved to see Phineas Nigellus waiting for him near the exit, beaming.

The exchange with Abraxas Malfoy had gone well.

xxxxxxx

Back in the attic of Grimmauld Place 12 Sirius could not sleep. Shadows of all shapes and sizes played hide and seek on the wall, as if they were beings woven of darkness persecuted by bewitched candlelight. It was very warm.

Phineas Nigellus was toying with his model of the skies, feeling the movement of artificial stars with his hands. His dark unseeing eyes were strangely lined with some unknown expression that Sirius had rarely seen on any member of his family, perhaps only on cousin's Narcissa angelic face when she got married to Lucius. After a while, Phineas started searching frantically for something in his desk drawers. He sighed in relief when he retrieved a small bundle wrapped up in soft fabric. Setting it on the desk with special devotion, he immediately started entering line after line of thick handwriting into a piece of very old parchment, ready for usage in front of him.

Behind him, in the old discarded kitchen cupboard, there was a pile of books and scrolls protected by the enchanted transparent chains, ending in intertwined green and silver snakes hissing and spitting drops of liquid looking like blood except for its very green colour. The scene triggered a flood of unwanted ancient memories in his great-great-grandson, memories of the way too long summer holidays and even more dreadful Christmas breaks when Sirius had to return home from Hogwarts.

Once when he was fifteen he complained to his classmates before leaving school about how extremely bored and empty it was for him at home without them in winter. When they asked him what was there to do, he answered quickly that one could only read or commit suicide. When they inquired what he was doing then, he just chuckled and answered he was reading.

His friends never understood the sincerity of the jest. Sirius was despised and mocked for being different by all people he had known outside Hogwarts and reading was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind and giving in to the infamous Black drive towards insanity. There was at least one clinically crazy person in each generation; it was a known fact, and many of them took their own lives.

In the long winter evenings of his youth, he discovered a contingent of books and scrolls protected by the snakes in one of the mouldiest sections of the family library, covered with cobwebs and dust. No one ever touched that particular legacy. Sirius's father Orion and even grandfather Arcturus, who was the most formidable living wizard in the family, never approached it. Sirius didn't come close either, not for fear, but for believing that the magic contained in those books must have been the blackest of all if even his relatives felt uneasy about using it. Young Sirius wanted nothing to do with dark magic.

After his short acquaintance with Phineas Nigellus, Sirius realised who was the owner and perhaps even the author of some of those protected books. So perhaps the reason why Orion and Arcturus stayed clear of them was rather the fear of their common ancestor and his magical prowess, or simple inability, rather then unwillingness to use them. Sirius remembered the same snakes strangulating him when he first stepped into the attic that morning. He wondered what was so valuable for his great-great-grandfather in those books that he went to so much trouble to make them inaccessible to the rest of the family.

"Great-great-grandfather," Sirius dared starting a conversation, "sorry to interrupt but neither of us is able to sleep. Perhaps it's as good a time as any to discuss my necessity of time travel."

Carefully rolling the parchment, Phineas Nigellus squarely faced Sirius, "There are many stories about time-travel, Sirius, and many experimental devices among wizarding families if you know where to look. The most promising one for production on a larger scale is a Time Turner. The Ministry has a patent on it and they might release it for sale. The device can only go backwards in time, for a short duration. The user's capacity to change the past events is limited and the device works well only under the condition that we are not seen by ourselves in the past."

"I know those, they won't help me," Sirius frowned, keeping his disappointment in check, and urging Phineas to continue, "but you were saying? Go ahead, please."

"The Umbridges are experimenting with animals, they believe that the ultimate time travel vessel could be a cat, imagine..." it was Phineas' turn to snort in dismissal. "So far there were no travelling results but there were lots of dead cats, not to mention that the experiments are slightly illegal from the point of view of the regulations on the proper Care of Magical Creatures..."

Sirius was by that time listening carefully, his facial expression between amusement and genuine interest as Phineas continued talking to his stars as if he had been completely alone in the room: "Then there is the crystal sphere, property of the Malfoys. Abraxas affirms he can use it to travel into the future but I think he is plain and simple lying. The Malfoys have this boasting mania. My own experiments on it when he was not looking show the sphere to be something like an alternative Floo Network. It can be used to make long distance calls, and perhaps calls through time in my own theory. But a call through time would require a strong personal connection between those who wished to communicate, a great love, or better still, an even greater hatred..."

"Abraxas constructed it of unstable air crystals invented by the Mere People to breathe under water. The same substance is added to Pensieves to preserve memories over time. Also, to make such a call someone has to place you in the sphere and pull you out later on. Otherwise you could just get lost between life and death. And I have no idea how to select the correct destination once you are in it."

"Right. You may not believe me but I spoke to a man who was trapped inside the sphere earlier at the Malfoys. It was someone... Well, I almost had him killed in the past. My past. The future. Whatever. And we've always hated each other. We were very good at that. There you have it, this seems to corroborate your theory," while speaking, Sirius felt the tiniest of concerns for Snivelly's welfare.

He could imagine that whoever of his Death Eater friends placed him in the sphere in the Malfoy Manor had no good intentions. All things considered, Sirius had to unwillingly admit that Snape was a rather competent wizard whose loyalties lied on the correct side lately in his life. He might even be able to help Ariana out in her new surroundings. _Besides, it's safe,_ roared the lion of jealousy in Sirius's chest. _There's no way Ariana would fall for the charming greasy hair act now, would she? Merlin, Snape will take her directly to Albus!_ Sirius could only wonder at the exact amount of uncontrolled magic that was going to be performed when brother and sister looked each other in the eye again.

Phineas Nigellus did not react at all to the new information. _Arrogant idiot,_ thought Sirius, _he's so convinced of his theories, which can be plain wrong like any others._

Unrolling fully the parchment he had been writing on, Phineas started blowing over it. The air from his lungs lifted a cloud of golden dust from the thick handwriting, directing it into a small object Sirius noticed for the first time, a peculiar item made of thin dry branches of some light-coloured polished wood. The branches intertwined to create a star-shaped vessel that could fit in a palm of one's hand. The interior seemed empty except for the occasional flicker of yellow light from within.

 _Gryffindor gold_ , thought Sirius as Phineas Nigellus contemplated the dust, which seemed to invade the small vessel and settle down inside the container, embraced lovingly by the old man's hands.

Phineas finally spoke again.

"According to you, Sirius, what is the biggest flaw of the Black family?"

"The evil in it," Sirius replied without thinking.

"Have you been evil to the man you almost killed?"

"I may have. I probably was. At the time I thought I was very smart and good of heart. I wanted to humiliate him for being evil," Sirius briefly stated the truth of his actions to Snape as he saw them, returning immediately to the more pressing issue of time travel. "Despite all, I think he had tried to ask me where I was and he told me that Ariana was fine. She's with him now. She must have crossed to my time using the Veil that brought me here."

"The Veil, that would be the device you said young Albus was about to donate to the Ministry for investigation. We should pay it a visit first thing in the morning. Either way, Sirius, you have to understand that the main issue with time travel is choosing the correct destination," Phineas said, tucking the star-shaped vessel safely in its fabric again.

"There are many accounts of time travel uncalled for, as it happened to you. But knowing where you want to go and arriving there is an entirely different proposition."

"What do you mean exactly?" Sirius was about to lose his patience. Some results were needed and fast. He had no intention of living with his great-great-grandfather for long.

"I have theorized a lot about time travel and I argued that just like when we're performing any other form of magic we have to focus on the result, in this case the destination, in our minds. If the focus is strong enough and if we don't lose it, we'll be able to reach it. Just like we need a wand to channel our magic better, a vehicle is required for our concentration to complete the process and that brings us to the necessity of constructing a time travel device for the success of our project."

"I believe that animals or any living things are not adequate because they have a mind of their own, which will interfere with our intent. Substances like water crystals are better but they are too volatile to precisely guide our mind."

Sirius couldn't believe that he was still attentively listening to the magical theory of one of his family members but he nevertheless blurted, "Why is all this of any interest to you?"

"It all started as a desire for power. Imagine what I could achieve being able to visit any point in space and time as I wished. I could easily become the most feared wizard of my time!" Phineas' gaze wondered away as if he could observe the play of shadows on the wall, his expression fearsome and haunted all of a sudden, the face of the man who had lost everything. The face Sirius could have seen if he could have looked in the mirror on the day when he first woke up in his cell in Azkaban.

"And how did it end?" Sirius was suddenly eager to learn as much as possible about the motivation of the old man, in an absence of a better thing to do. The sleepless night they were sharing seemed to have loosened a typically reserved older Black's tongue.

Phineas started whistling a sad melody giving an impression of a senility. He ignored Sirius for hours and all the while none of them could catch any sleep. The Muggles would have blamed it on the full moon, which glimpsed curiously through the open window at the two men. The night was way too warm for Muggles and wizards alike.

"I am evil," Phineas said finally. "I've done evil without hesitation."

"Yet I wish to tell you a story, for no reason," he continued. "Or maybe the reason is that should I believe your story about my future, I might be gone soon and no one will know."

"When I was young, much younger than you are now, a few years after I left Hogwarts, I met Vanna Rose Prince." At that he Accioed from the top drawer a wizarding photograph of a thin young woman with straight silky black hair and rather flat face, waving and smiling. The picture smelled of roses."

"Everybody was telling me how dashing I looked at the time and she was a few years older than me and no one thought of her as attractive. I saw immediately how she was smart and pretty, quick at wand and skilful with the cauldron."

"Still I believed myself better than her, richer, more handsome, whatever you want. I was sure she was going to wait for me. So I left to see the world and invent new Dark Magic as I went. I was convinced that it was only natural that she would prefer me to anybody else because how could she not see that we were a perfect match."

"I couldn't be more wrong."

"I spent long years of my youth chasing after phantoms of important causes only to return home and find my unique cause of true happiness expecting somebody else's child. I was devastated and I hated her but I couldn't bring myself to hurt her, so I did the second best thing: I cursed her to lose that child."

"When she woke up, she knew what I did. She didn't say a word, she just gave me a sad smile. It was as if her smile had a secret power to pay me back in kind, for I knew then beyond any doubt that I'd been condemned never to know peace in my own family."

Silence stretched between them again as a long dull speech on somebody's funeral. Sirius felt sick at the thought of what his great-great-grandfather had done. _And I'm sure it's not his only such deed by far_ , he thought.

Phineas fought for air under the enchanted skies as if the memories he let himself relive were about to choke him to death.

"In the end both of us had children with other people. I treated mine like dirt, pushing my son Sirius to madness and oblivion. He needed frequent treatments in St Mungos, where he had to be interned in the end, but not before he taught his son Arcturus how to hate me back. Twenty-two years ago, when I retired from Hogwarts, Sirius took me by surprise and overpowered me. He was not strong enough to kill me and our duel turned into a draw. Tired of fighting, I made an agreement with him: As long as I didn't cause trouble, I was going to live here in the attic and I was not going to be blasted from the family tree."

"When I wanted to shake hands to seal our agreement, I let go of my wand for a second and then Sirius tricked me casting a Permanent Blinding Charm on me in the second before I banished him to one of the walls."

"I was defeated. Blackness was all that remained."

"In my solitude, I immersed myself in time travel mysteries and I invented Dark Magic spells of binding and causing pain."

Phineas ended his monologue in another uncomfortable silence soon to be interrupted by younger Sirius, his voice much more careful than it ever had been, as though he were treading on eggs:

"What happened to Vanna?"

"She died," whispered the old man and continued softly. "When she was gone, I received a letter addressed to _'Phineas Nigellus, still among the living but not for long, attic, Grimmauld Place, London_ '. The letter just said, _'Never mind, Phineas. All is well. I wish I had kissed you good bye. I pray every moment for the angels to show you the way.'_ "

"You tried to talk to her from the sphere in Malfoy Manor, haven't you?" Sirius asked in a tone of a wizard who finally saw the light.

"Kreacher helped me. The old Elf is not half as bad as he tries to show," Phineas sounded very embarrassed for discussing his sentimental life with his distant progeny.

"Kreacher? That miserable bat? No wonder that it didn't work out for you," Sirius jested in a cruel voice.

"Or perhaps Vanna didn't have any strong feelings for me. I was nothing to her, our relationship may have been entirely in my head," the blind man said calmly as if that was the truth he had learned to accept.

"So tell me again Sirius, what is our biggest flaw, if it's not the evil we all carry inside us?" Phineas asked in a stern voice.

"Pride," the answer sounded hollow in their small living space and it sucked all the warmth from the air, leaving the world behind as a much more desolate place. Sirius knew that it was the right response. He had always known.

"Kreacher was barely able to extract me out of the sphere with my life intact because I refused to get out in crazy hope that I was going to talk to her... When my experiment failed so spectacularly, I buried my nose even deeper in my research and desired to go away, no matter where. As long as it was far, far away."

"I wanted to discover and visit another inhabited planet if I could, or to travel far into the future and see if it was any better than the present. I wanted to burn in action and leave the fruits of my work to posterity, such as they may be."

Sirius stared at his great-great-grandfather feeling dangerously close to starting to believe in him wishing to fly a ship to the stars for no reason at all. Except that Blacks normally never believed in benefiting the world with their discoveries, only in being better than others and keeping what they knew for themselves. He was shaken from his musings by now completely sober, calculated words.

"Destination, Sirius. That is the key. I believe that I have finally found a device susceptible to be a proper channel to the mind to reach the desired destination in either long distance space or time travel. Malfoy will deliver it tomorrow. Would you try it out for me? If it works, you can use it to travel wherever you want!"

"No offence, great-great-grandfather, but I would rather return through the Veil then test your fascinating theories," Sirius said, dryly remembering who he was talking to. "I took you to the Malfoys, it's your turn to help me reach the Veil in the Ministry. That was our deal."

Phineas nodded in agreement but Sirius could swear that he made a face Severus Snape would have made all those years ago when he must have felt hurt by the Marauders and when he thought that no one was watching.

 _I am evil too_ , thought Sirius, blatantly aware that he would be capable of killing anybody in 1925 in order to ensure his swift and immediate return to his own battle in his own time.

 _Perhaps killing Voldemort's ancestors would be a good place to start if I only knew who they were,_ Sirius pondered. Albus may have known but he had never told him and young Albus from this time would not know it yet. For a moment Sirius was overwhelmed by certainty that he could truly commit murder to have things his way, just like they accused him of doing when Peter killed all those Muggles, and Sirius was sent to rot in Azkaban in his stead.

"I am as evil as the rest of our family," Sirius mumbled tiredly.

"Not evil," muttered the old man, "obstinate."

Sirius could not tell if the old man referred to Sirius or to their family in general, and he preferred to put the night's conversation to rest. He would be gone soon and he didn't plan to make his acquaintance with Phineass Nigellus very extensive.

Sleep was still hard to come by, but the early morning found them dozing. Phineas snored on the couch behind his desk and Sirius fell asleep in a chair. Two flecks of golden dust from the small wooden container landed gently on Sirius' eyebrows. His sleep became peaceful at once without him being the wiser for it.

xxxxxxx

Late morning before lunch in the Ministry of Magic was very busy as usual, when all doors opened for old Mr Black and his fake grandson. A witch in bright orange robes took them to the registry room for unclassified objects, where the Veil of Death still awaited to be entered to the Ministry inventory and brought inside for study.

"We receive so many donations every day," the witch said. "Proper processing takes time and I can assure you that this object seems to hold no particular interest. Our best Unspeakables have already performed initial verification of its properties."

It looked like the amount of sheer lack of intelligence in the Ministry was something you could count on in all times. Protecting the wizarding world from the unknown and keeping it in safe well-trodden boundaries was more important than establishing the truth.

Phineas Nigellus cautiously approached and gently tapped the frame of the pointed arch construction with his wand, careful not to touch however lightly a tattered black curtain, slightly waving in the non-existing wind.

One sharp dark look of young Mr Black was enough to chase the confused witch out of the room and Phineas wordlessly cast a Silencing Charm around them before he spoke, "This is indeed an object imbued with magic, probably dark in nature. But the magic is so strong that it has a will of its own. You could never force it to take you where you want to go. If you choose to go, it will take you to the place of its own choosing, not yours. Maybe even to your death. Young Albus Dumbledore is wrong about many things but he's no fool. I believe that he had called this the Veil of Death for a reason."

"Of course there's a reason for that! I died when I collapsed into it, remember? No matter what, I will not test that device of yours!" Sirius yelled. "Do you think that I don't understand what you–"

" – I know you do! Please, Sirius, believe me!"

"Give me a good reason to do so!" Sirius cried, vision blurred with the image of Harry calling for his help, coming a step closer to the Veil and forgetting all decisions about rationality and logic. Before he would have touched the curtain, he felt the excruciatingly painful grip of magic bonds immobilising his body and a wand pointed at his forehead. Sirius gasped wishing that his great-great-grandfather's studies in time travel were as successful as the skills he acquired in causing pain.

"You fool! I will let you kill yourself, I will even assist you to either kill yourself or transport yourself to the Stone Age if you wish. But first you will take a look at my time travel machine whether you wish it or not!"

A furious Phineas Nigellus sent Sirius levitating. They went out of the Ministry undetected, but not before leaving a short thank you note to the witch who showed them in, because Phineas Nigellus's old school education for gentlewizards would not allow him to depart before showing proper respect to a lady. He didn't need his sight to Side-Apparate them both to Grimmauld Place, and Sirius wondered if his help was required at all for the old man to visit the Malfoys, or if his real dreadful intentions towards Sirius were something he was only about to discover.

Abraxas Malfoy kept his word. The delivery was made by a young postal dragon moments after they returned. The dragon seemed happy to get rid of a heavy looking oddly shaped parcel in the attic dwelling of Phineas Nigellus.

"In my time we use owls," mentioned Sirius.

"So do we," explained Phineas Nigellus, "but the wealthy can pay the dragon for particularly heavy missives..."

With a simple unwrapping spell the old man revealed the contents of the parcel.

Literally stunned Sirius Black stared as only the initiated into the Order of the Phoenix had a right to do at the sight of the most unimaginable sacrilegious item in a house of a dark pure-blood wizard, most of all a Black.

Large and shiny, a slender elegant metallic shape was revealed to the beholder, dark grey and silver-coloured. So beautifully old fashioned as they came in the old-timer sections of the magazines Sirius collected as a young man. The handlebars stretched far out on the sides. It wasn't a bike, it was a living wonder.

Phineas Nigellus ideal apparatus for achieving precision in time travel was a Muggle motorcycle.


	12. Headmasters and Portraits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where brothers and a sister meet again

The circular office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts looked abandoned and barren. A deserted bird perch next to the door, a few empty spindle-legged tables. The black clad man who had brought Ariana to the famous School of Witchcraft and Wizardry just pushed her inside, recommending her to stay there and not touch anything before he left her without another word. A black-clad man, a black-clad woman and a ghost, what a welcoming party on the other side!

 _This is as it should be,_ she had thought before letting herself slide into the Nativity painting, wondering where she was going to end up, too excited with a foreboding sense of adventure to consider a possibility that she could just as well die.

And now she was in Hogwarts! Inquisitive by nature, freed from captivity, Ariana's appetite to learn was growing in size with every passing moment. She wanted to understand if she was a freak or just a normal witch that Gellert prevented from using magic. Hogwarts seemed like an excellent place to do just that. The sight of the castle was impressive yet its power was not in the strength of its walls. The magic was everywhere, it was in the air and it was in her soul. Her brothers' stories about the school she was never going to attend became alive in her mind with all details of spells learned and pranks carried out.

She thought of water and a glass of water popped on one of the empty tables.

"Quite impressive, Miss…?" the voice came from the wall.

Ariana walked towards it and found a portrait marked as Phineas Nigellus Black, Headmaster of Hogwarts, not blind, this one, and not looking at all like a proud old man visiting her father. The man in the portrait only looked arrogant and icy cold. Yet her heart fluttered reshaping the portrait's face into a much younger one with the same dark locks, same angular features of the face, she just had to replace the piercing brown eyes with the pale grey ones she had left behind, the eyes that now haunted her dreams, arms that swept her off her feet while dancing...

"My name is Ariana," she said calmly.

Phineas whistled, "Wandless, wordless magic, my dear. Impressive! Your last name should be Black."

Ariana drank her water.

"Except that you look nothing like my kin. If I was alive instead of trapped in this old ugly portrait I would ask you out for a cup of tea. I hope young Headmaster Snape will avail himself of that opportunity," continued Phineas with a mischievous smile. "My dear, meanwhile you should really get acquainted with the only other competent magic user in this room next to myself, of course. Albus! Wake up! WAKE UP!" the portrait of the old Black started shrieking like mad.

"I'm not sleeping," said a quiet serious voice from the other wall.

Ariana turned, in a blizzard of contradictory feelings, towards what had to be her brother Albus, hiding from her. Her knees were shaking and she thanked Merlin for the length of the robes hiding her nerves away.

"Albus" she nodded, schooling her voice not to show emotion, one of the few useful things she learned with Gellert, all the while measuring the passing of age on her brother's wrinkled face. Long grey hair and grey beard in place of auburn locks she remembered. It made her unbearably sad. And thinking she should be that old as well in this time caused her heart skip a beat.

There was one extremely important question to ask about something Ariana needed to know immediately, "Is Aberforth still alive? I presume that you're not since you are now a portrait of a former Headmaster..."

"Aberforth runs an inn in a village near by, Hogsmeade. The place is called Hog's Head. We have barely talked since... You know... Most of people who know us have no idea we're brothers," immensely old eyes of Ariana's oldest brother glimmered sadly under half-moon-shaped spectacles. "And yes, I'm only alive as a portrait now."

Ariana suddenly turned hysteric, all poise gone. "Why, Albus? Why did you never check on your precious friend? Do you have any idea what he was doing to me? And how long it lasted? You wouldn't understand what he was doing to me, would you? And if it wasn't for a twist of fate neither would I!"

"Do you regret what you call a twist of faith?" Albus inquired with extreme caution as raw magic rapidly filled the room between Ariana and her brother's portrait, warming the frame up and threatening to set it on fire.

"Fate, not faith", Ariana clarified. "I lost faith 12 years ago when you left me with your best friend. And don't even try to tell me that you didn't know like you wanted to tell Abeforth!"

"Fate it is then," said Dumbledore quietly while the topmost beam of his painting frame started smoking and caught fire. Albus coughed from smoke and continued: "Ariana, I know that in your captivity you must have met someone else. I ignore who this person was or how that came to be. I can only give you the message he left for you and hope that one day, maybe, you will find it in your heart to forgive me."

"What are you talking about, Albus? There was no one there!" Ariana lied convincingly because there was no way she could discuss Sirius with her brother. The acute sense of loss was too fresh and raw to talk about what happened with anybody. Still, Albus confused her as usual. She was uncertain again about his true intentions and the flames devouring the frame of his portrait dwindled into soft smoke.

"Oh, but there was. The message was to tell my sister, if I ever see you again, that the man who made breakfast for you loved you. And that he was going to do all in his power to find you again. I may have forgotten the exact words but that was the general idea. Good heavens, Ariana, I never expected to see you alive again," Albus's eyes were lined with tears, not showing any shame or embarrassment for what he let happen to his only sister.

"I have no idea who he is but I believed him," Albus's eyes twinkled with emotion and tears finally started to run freely down his cheeks, only to be stopped in the tangles of his white shaggy beard.

Ariana stood flabbergasted, recognising the message from Sirius and struggling with the meaning of the sentence she would normally read only in far too sweet wizarding novels, published in illustrated episodes on the last page of the normal Daily Prophet in her time. She didn't need much life experience to know that they were all false.

Surely love was fierce and violent as Gellert understood it, all made of dominance and possession. Love could certainly not be as easy and natural as running water, as fresh and free as the wind. And if by a miracle, love was all that and much more, surely no one would love her, a freak, a Squib, tainted, impure, with such love. Not after she captured him and left him, after he had seen through all her lies and deceptions...

The arrival of the new Headmaster of Hogwarts saved Ariana from her thoughts.

"Albus," Snape said urgently, "is she really your-" "-sister, yes. Ariana Kendra Dumbledore."

Phineas Nigellus gasped in surprise as an old lady who had just heard a bit of juicy gossip.

"Headmaster, you are getting visitors from the Ministry," spoke a bony-faced witch who had just returned to her portrait, breathless. "They are bringing you the Veil of Death. The Minister wishes you to study it and I believe that the Unspeakable who recommended this had been Imperiused to do that by You-Know-Who."

"Severus, they cannot see her," said Albus, all cold and down to business. "Take her to Hog's Head. Aberforth's my brother. He has a portrait of Ariana in the back room. Hide her there! Hurry!"

Ariana tried to protest when the new headmaster shoved her unceremoniously towards the door.

"I am duty bound to offer you a piece of advice, headmaster" sneered Phineas Nigellus maliciously. "If I were you I would provide the young lady with all scrolls on wandless magic available to you. Accidentally there is a collection of forbidden works in my old house in Grimmauld Place. She should really spend her free time dwelling on those rather than waste her time with any of you insolent young wizards. On the other hand, a charming gentlemanly portrait could be worthy of her attentions..." The inicial malice of his speech was replaced with shameless glee and winking in Ariana's direction, causing a dangerous glare in the eyes of Albus's portrait, which Ariana missed entirely.

Ariana was suddenly happy to allow the only living man in the room to push her on the spiral staircase leading out, not wishing to hear any more nonsense. She was starting to develop a strong dislike for the portrait of Phineas Nigellus.

During the long walk to Hogsmeade, she couldn't help but wonder if Albus saw Gellert differently after he learned the whole truth of how his cherished  _friend_  had treated her and if her brother ever _did_ anything to make Gellert pay for it before their famous duel, which became one of the greatest events in the wizarding future, or the recent history, depending on the time perspective one wanted to use.

xxxxxxxx

Severus was crouching behind the bush nearby the entrance to Hog's Head.

He couldn't believe he was actually doing something like that. The position he was in at that moment was hurting his reputation and also his knees, reminding him in return that while he was not a teenager any more, he did his best to behave like one. _I'm acting out of the ordinary as usual,_ he thought, _nothing new. And I will be hated for it, no doubt._ The notion of being hated cheered him up.

Disregarding all unnecessary thoughts as was his habit, Snape paid attention to the Hog's Head and waited, the new improved Dung Bomb ready in his robes. Severus wondered if he ever did something that immature in his youth and concluded that he had not, all the while getting ready to use the ridiculous item he confiscated from the students last year, probably a product from the shop of the Weasley twins. He picked it up in haste from housekeeper Filch's storage of forbidden objects before heading rapidly to Hogsmeade with Ariana. There was no time to loose.

He turned around to take a look at Ariana. The look on her face was determined and if she had been uncomfortable in the ditch where they were hiding, she was even more decided not to show it. Severus managed a sneer hoping it would look as an encouraging smile.

He let the Dung Bomb detonate on the far end of the inn from where he and Ariana lay hidden. It worked. Aberforth was out in a minute and Severus and his sister scurried into the Hog's Head reaching a beautiful painting in the back room of the pub.

"Hello," Ariana said to the painted Ariana. "Do you know me?"

"You are much more beautiful than I am," the painted Ariana smiled, "didn't we both die?"

"Almost. But not yet. Would you help me, please? I need a place to hide in Hogwarts. I'd like to take your place in this portrait and you could live in another painting inside the school or move around if you wish. This man here has become the headmaster after our brother. He can help you find a place."

"You mean after he killed our brother. Well done, Severus!" the painted Ariana beamed and clapped her hands, causing a weird sensation in her living counterpart who couldn't remember hating her brother that much, no matter what had passed between them.

"You can express the depth of your feelings to Albus in person if you would only follow me. I am certain he will be thrilled," said Snape coldly.

"Why don't _you_ go back to Albus? I prefer living here with Aberforth," squeaked the portrait Ariana, reminding the living one of the girl she was before the painting of the birth of a baby brought an uninvited guest to her life.

"From here I can come in and out of the castle as I please while the headmaster's office will be closely watched, according to … Severus. Can I call you that way?"

Severus just glared, "Albus always did. Please, do continue with this unwanted familiarity towards my person, Miss Dumbledore, I missed it dearly."

Ariana decided to ignore being called Miss Dumbledore for now, despite being old enough to be Severus' grandmother, and proceeded to give explanation to the portrait version of herself. "If I hide in Hogwarts, wrong eyes can notice that I am not a portrait. And you will be only one more painted figure having some good time with the others. I hope that you will truly enjoy it! Please!"

Painted Ariana sighed. "Alright, I'm going. I'm looking forward to making Albus miserable. But I will miss Aberforth. Look after him for both of us, will you?"

Ariana smiled while the painted Ariana rolled herself and let Severus scoop her under his robes. Transfiguring a living person into the format required for hiding in a magical portrait was a rather difficult but not impossible spell and Severus hoped he would do it right. He whispered: " _Imago_ ," waving his wand over Ariana who slowly sunk into the canvas and was now trying to feel the outer surface of the painting from within.

"You're sure I can go out?"

"Yes. Try. There," he said when Ariana managed to step in and out of the painting even if the passage was painfully slow. "Don't do that when someone is looking. And don't forget to make it look like you are asleep in the frame when Aberforth is around, the portraits doze more frequently, probably they are terribly bored by us mortals… There seems to be a large corridor behind your painting, check where it leads for your own safety."

"What, to Hogwarts, of course," yelled the rolled painted Ariana from inside Severus's robes. "Most of students don't know it but it's one of the safest ways in and out."

Severus thought he was better off without knowing which students did know about the secret passage.

"Thank you," said the real Ariana. "I will use the passage with caution."

Ariana stepped out of the painting one more time and did as her mother taught her to do when seeing off relatives and dear friends, kissing Severus on his cheek. "Thank you, Severus. You were kind to me in your own way since I arrived. I find that unusual in people."

xx

Severus did his best to hide his embarrassment and muttered that he had to be going not a moment too soon. They could hear steps approaching the pub, prompting him to leave through the window and dissolve into black fumes flying towards the Forbidden Forest. He was still not happy about the fact that Voldemort had placed him to be the Headmaster of Hogwarts as Dumbledore intended. It didn't bode well. _It means that other even more terrible moments Dumbledore had foreseen in the future will probably come true as well_ , thought Snape, hurrying back to Hogwarts to wait for the Veil of Death.

Marching through the Forbidden Forest he noticed a commotion in the direction of the nest of Acromantula spiders that he studiously tried to ignore in all his teaching years. That night something was different.

Cursing himself for giving in to irrational urges again, he went to check it out nevertheless. At the edge of the nest, several middle-sized spiders were trying to drag into it a small peculiar animal of a kind he had never seen in his life. It was not a snake but it could have been one, perhaps a lizard would be a good term, but the species was unknown and certainly had no place in Scotland. It looked vaguely tropical. The lizard was small and coloured in grey and yellow with some green, with tiny spikes protruding from its spine. The eyes were black and dull. The animal would look like a particularly fragile child toy if it weren't struggling valiantly against the Acromantulas, standing its ground and whipping around with its tiny tail in vain attempt to chase them away.

Severus repelled the spiders with ease and approached the small animal. As he did, it transformed in a black-clad figure crumpled on the ground, thick chestnut locks hiding her face.

"A most peculiar Animagus form, if I may say. And what would you be doing in a Forbidden Forest?" he asked in his silky dangerous voice.

"Severus!" she said, breathless as if she had been running too hard to reach him. "The Death Eaters are shipping you the Veil of Death to Hogwarts, I thought you should know. I went out in such a hurry that I forgot my wand."

A green meadow started forming in his mind and before her pale blue eyes would flicker green towards him, he yelled as a madman, all pretence of irony gone from his attitude, "Stop! You will deplete yourself!"

"It worked the last time you behaved like a stupid git that you are," she said.

"It's alright. You don't have to do it anymore."

"You liked it, didn't you, the previous time?" she whispered. "I know the effect of my gift."

Severus ignored her question and continued indifferently, "Can you transform again? I could carry you to the castle in your Animagus form. Perhaps it would be safer."

She obliged and Snape picked up the small delicate lizard in pale edition of Hufflepuff black and yellow. Its skin was cold and harsh like a bark of a tree, the little spikes prominent. He couldn't tell how he felt as the animal slid in place on the top of his right shoulder, tucking its tail under Snape's robes, and sticking its nose close to his neck. Somewhat unhinged and very unsure if he was disgusted by the lizard or happy to see Val, Severus went forward.

Despite being a good Slytherin, Snape had always cultivated a respectful dislike for snakes. And lizards were not that much different.

In the castle he hurried to the dungeons and picked up one of the empty jars he used to store ingredients. Tucking the small lizard gently into it, he loosely closed the jar with a lid, to keep some air coming in. Turned into the image of disdainful calm, he muttered to the inanimate glass, "It wouldn't do for the Ministry staff to see you now, would it?" He put Val on the shelf and left.

He ran to his new office, jumping four stairs in one long stride and unceremoniously unloaded the painted Ariana from his robes into the currently only empty frame of the former headmasters, the one belonging to Phineas Nigelleus Black.

Snape barely made it to the courtyard on time to welcome the delegation from the Ministry, who just kept standing on the grounds as if they were the integral part of the school's elaborated iron-wrought gates, as far away from the ominous arch as possible. The new headmaster had to summon Filch and the house ghosts to help transport it further until they all arrived in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.

 _Hogwarts, a History_ was going to remember Severus for rudeness, if not for anything else. Suffering from his usual lack of civility at its maximum, he succeeded in shooting murderous glances and remarks left and right until he was finally left alone.

 _A leaf from the Potter book now_ , he thought, hoping he would not access the room full of chamber pots as Albus once did. _I need a room to store the Veil of Death_ , he thought with all his being, walking in front of the tapestry an repeating the thought in his mind. One time, two times, three times! The Room of Requirement door showed up on the opposite wall and opened to the green meadow under the blue sky, very similar to the image of a different world Val created and let him into it.

 _It's perfect_ , he thought.

He couldn't imagine that anyone of the student body would imagine such a place as what they required and consequently find the Veil. It was the safest place Snape could think of.

Trying to move it was another matter entirely and he couldn't ask anybody for help lest he showed them the hiding place. He tried all spells he knew, even physically pushing the arch, careful not to touch the curtain which now hung limply above the ground. But the Veil did not budge as if it had a mind of its own and did not want to be stored anywhere, safely or not.

The Veil wanted to be found.

After many unsuccessful attempts, he caught a glimpse of a transparent substance at the end of the Room of Requirement, wondering how it got there.

"I said no ghosts! You know that I'm perfectly capable of performing the ghost annihilating spell," he threatened, imagining the Bloody Baron being nosy as usual. The substance thickened into a flow of grey skirts and a woman with a curtain of knee-length orange-glowing hair materialised in the dark.

"I might be able to help you," Ariana said.

Snape witnessed her eyeing the Veil of Death with something resembling hatred, yet more powerful and wild, an expression he had only rarely seen in Albus when he would get deeply emotional.

Seconds later, the Veil was blown into the Room of the Requirement landing with a crash on a bed of white daisies and grass, shaking as if it would shatter. The arch finally stabilised and the tattered curtain slowly transformed in a taut dark blue immobile canvas tightly spanning the arch opening. Severus remembered the stories of the Order members about Albus wandlessly throwing sculptures at Voldemort during the battle in the courtyard of the Ministry of Magic the night when Sirius Black died.

"Thank you, Miss Dumbledore" said Severus, a hint of professional consideration barely audible in his flat voice.

"It's Ariana, Severus."

"Ariana," Severus acknowledged the informality of treatment, feeling terribly defeated.

"Severus, I have to see a healer. A real one. In my previous life I had one who didn't mean well. He… He didn't treat me kindly and I don't even know if my condition can be treated," pleaded Ariana. "This, you see, I could have killed us both."

Snape just shrugged, as if his possible death held no interest for him whatsoever, and smirked at her cryptically, "I might have a healer ready in for you a jar."

Noticing her puzzled look, he continued, "I invite you to haunt the halls with me now rather then walk, if you wouldn't mind..."

"Corpusspiritus…" Ariana slurred, immediately transforming into the silvery equivalent of a Hogwarts ghost hovering over the floor. "I read about this spell but I never performed it before. You don't think that I'm a freak?"

Severus looked at her incredulously. How could someone have met him and then worry about being a freak was beyond him. The situation desperately called for a cup of tea or perhaps a glass of Firewhisky. Except that Snape still hated drinking and he didn't want to be reminded of his father.

Snape's relationship with his father was the only point in common he genuinely shared with Voldemort. Tom Riddle killed his father and Snape would have gladly done the same thing if the alcohol didn't kill his old man first. And an occasional drink would always irrevocably remind him that in some aspects Severus was much more like his father then he would have liked to admit, resentful and easily offended.

They passed through the dungeons where Severus picked up Val in a jar. Ariana looked at every single feature of the castle in amazement as if Hogwarts was a miracle beyond expectations. They took the secret passage back from the Room of Requirement to Hog's Head, retracing the path Ariana crossed for the first time in her life to arrive to the castle. The portrait door at the end was wide open, and they both bumped into furious Aberforth Dumbledore, who pressed his wand hard between Snape's eyes.

"Aberforth," Severus started, unable to draw his wand lest he would drop the jar with Val from way too high up for his liking.

"No, Severus, let me explain," Ariana slithered between two men turning corporeal again and put her warm hand on her brother's shoulder. "It's me, Aberforth. I came back through the Veil. I mean, the painting, Remember, Albus, Gellert and you fought. A stray curse hit me. I told Gellert I would have loved him if only he had asked nicely. Who else could know that?"

Abeforth's wand arm started shaking like a leaf and his bright blue eyes swelled with tears. Severus considered for a moment that he might get accidentally killed during the wonderful family reunion. He tightly clutched the jar as the image of Val broken in thousand pieces flashed in his mind making him strangely displeased.

"Your portrait seemed so alive this morning," Abeforth sniffed, "and then you were gone!"

Ariana gently moved her brother's wand arm down, away from harm, as she hugged him, tightly. "It is me, Aberforth. It's over."

"He killed Albus! He's a Death Eater!" Abeforth still had some energy left to rebel against Snape, but Ariana wouldn't let him go from her embrace.

"And you're the barman! Let's have a drink to Albus's soul, shall we?" said Snape cynically, pointing his wand at Aberforth, but only after he carefully put the jar down and opened it to let Val regain her human form in case Aberforth would best him in an imminent duel.

The small lizard writhed, twisted, stretched and finally stood upright changing before them all. Somewhere on the outside there was a sound of thunder and thick summer rainshower came pouring down, as if nature wanted to provide cover and hide the scene taking place in Hog's Head from unfriendly eyes.

"He's a common murderer, but he's not a very convinced Death Eater," stated Val calmly, looking at Aberforth, whose face transformed.

"Lyra... What a day! My sister is here and now you. Young Lyra Peverell! What a day! I saw you last some twenty years ago but I would always recognise you. Look at you! You're still so beautiful! Is your father also back from Brazil again? Less strict regulations on ghosts, I hear."

"Lyra?" asked Snape in amazement as the part of him prone to gossip and showing unhealthy interest in other people's lives took control for a brief moment.

"Dad's obviously back, Aberforth," Val sighed. "He rescued Regulus some twenty years ago and now he returned for Sirius. I still don't know why he plays the knight in shiny armour with the lost Blacks. But it looks like we were too late this time."

"How is Betty? Still with you?" asked Abeforth, suddenly bursting with questions.

"She was most helpful to transport all our possessions with sufficient secrecy and speed. She left London though, this is not a fit place for her."

"Sirius is alive," Ariana interrupted, "it's not too late. He is stuck in the time of our youth, Aberforth. He's looking for a way to return."

"As if I cared!" exclaimed Val, and Severus felt his heart bursting from joy.

"You're still young," Aberforth commented, beaming at his sister.

"Maybe I am, but I feel as old as the world," Ariana made a sad little smile and hugged Aberforth again.

"Don't," said Aberforth, "such preposterous feelings are reserved for Albus. And he can't be with us now."

Brother and sister started sobbing together and laughing between sobs when they caught breath, not paying any attention to Snape's incredulous stare and wand still pointed at Aberforth's chest.

Val gently pushed Snape's wand down, snitched it out of his hand and used it, without asking his permission, to conjure a simple black wooden hair pin to tie her hair. Stern again, she nudged all three of them to sit down at one of the empty tables in the back room of the inn before saying, "And Aberforth, please, call me Val! I'm sure you remember that I never liked my first name since apparently it was my mother who chose it for me."

"What's wrong with that?" blurted Snape who had adored his mother.

"Well, for one thing, I've never met her. And my father never even told me who she was. Isn't that reason enough?"

Aberforth compassionately tapped Val on her back and went to check on his few guests in the common room. He soon returned with a bottle of Firewhisky.

Snape hoped that no real Death Eater would disturb what could only have been one of the very first reunions of the newly reformed Order of the Phoenix. "Where is Regulus?" he wondered, when his mind finally processed all the new information.

"In Brazil," said Val, and uncharacteristically shut up without continuing the chat.

"And who's Betty?" asked Severus, absent-minded, about the next unknown variable in an equation called Val.

As usual when she didn't want to disclose something, Val didn't bother to honour him with a reply.


	13. The Crime of Lyra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the tale of the first blood traitor in the Black family is told

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

Sirius Black was again hung upside down on the attic of his family house, staring at the latest early 20th century model of a Muggle motorcycle, brand new and shining, from a particularly unusual angle, which made his eyes hurt.

The infamous Black temper seemed to have caught up with Phineas Nigellus who was firmly back in the role of the implacable evil old man, not prone to discuss anything whatsoever with his great-great-grandson, since the stunt in the Ministry when Sirius nearly ran into the Veil against his ancestor's admonitions.

Phineas Nigellus busied himself measuring his own and Sirius's hands and taking their prints in soft clay. Mumbling unknown dark sounding charms over the motorcycle, he wrapped the resulting clay plates imbued with traces of their hands around the handlebars, one after another, and hummed harmoniously in utmost satisfaction.

After almost two days of incessant work, Phineas Nigellus snorted and ventured downstairs, without a word of consideration for Sirius as was to be expected. The younger wizard was trying hard to think how to placate his relative one more time, but nothing useful came into mind. Following a few moments of silence, his ears caught the conversation from the floor below. More than ever, he was grateful for his sharpened dog's hearing senses. Remembering his Animagus form, he realised that he didn't try to transform to get himself out of the hanging predicament, yet. In a few seconds a large black dog paced through the attic, exhilarated, in blatant disbelief that the dark magic expert like Phineas Nigellus forgot to secure his binding spell to include illegal Animagi.

He approached the door and stood to hear the discussion getting more animated.

"You don't have much time left, do you now, old bat" whispered a silky malicious voice. "The dosage was more than sufficient I would say."

"Maybe so," retorted the old man. "But I can still curse you to death even in my sleep with your brain of a Flobberworm."

"You wouldn't. With dear father completely insane in St. Mungos, who would inherit this wonderful place of yours and make sure that your portrait is taken to Hogwarts so that we don't have to look at you... You need to make sure that I get an heir."

"I will be gone soon, yes. That's what you wanted, right? Now get out of my way!" bellowed Phineas. "I don't want to see neither you nor your wife for as long as I still have to live!"

"Why, that won't be very long now, will it?" laughed the rumbling crazy voice of Sirius's grandfather Arcturus Black. "And it's not like you could see us anyway!"

"Your father certainly saw to that," stated Phineas. "When you have a child of your own, I can only hope that you will see reason before it's too late."

The conversation ended in a shower of colourful sparks and small explosions that could be seen if one peeked under the attic door and Sirius soon abandoned his position not to be caught eavesdropping. Dirty little secrets of his petty family held no interest for him at all, and he suspected Phineas Nigellus would not be exactly pleased if he knew about his latest achievement.

The old blind wizard stormed back in with a large black box full of Muggle tools for motorcycle maintenance. He was so consumed by the progress of his experiment that he didn't even bother to check if Sirius was still dangling in his place or not. Moments after, it became painfully obvious that the old Black could not use the tools he must have expertly summoned or stolen from some Muggle garage nearby, even if his life depended on it. Sirius realized he was on an excellent path to completely ruin the beautiful machine obtained from Abraxas Malfoy with great price, 10000 Galleons, vague promises of grand alliances in the future, and a placing of a particularly dark charm only Phineas Nigellus was capable of performing on one of the Malfoy family heirlooms. He obviously did not reveal the nature of the charm to Sirius.

The attic door slammed shut and Phineas heard a snarl of a monstrous dog behind his back. Fearless despite his disability, he drew his wand to attack when the dog spoke transforming into a man.

"Great-great-grandfather, you don't have to speak to me if you don't wish to do so, but you could at least let me help you fix your bike the way you want it done. Unlike you, I do know what to do with all those Muggle tools. I used them before. The way you're going about it, you'll completely ruin the engine in no time!"

"You are an Animagus, a dog," Phineas stated the obvious way too carefully where in Sirius's opinion he should have been angry. "Are you black and a bit shaggy, with pale eyes?"

"Yes, why-"

"- did people ever mistake you for a Grim?" "Well, yes... but..." stuttered Sirius.

"Excellent!"

Sirius wondered what new evil would come from the sudden bliss of his ancestor. It was usually extremely difficult to determine what was worse – bad Black temper when the individuals were happy, when they were angry or simply deranged.

"Give me your hands again, here... so!" Phineas placed Sirius's hands on motorcycle handlebars covered with patches of damp clay and gently tapped them in to leave another imprint. He repeated the same with his own hands.

And just like that, the recently acquired familiarity between the two men was back in place, the resentment and the unease seemingly forgotten.

"Here, I'm really proud of this piece of my engineering. A magical organic interface between a wizard and a Muggle machine! Our hands transfer the magic to the motorcycle in similar ways our wand channels it. This machine recognises only you and me and it will let no other ride it or command it," Phineas sounded very accomplished. His academic precision reminded Sirius of Hermione, one of Harry's best friends. Sirius chuckled supressing the idea to verbally compare the old Black with a brilliant Muggle-born witch with bushy hair.

The success of one part of his endeavours seemed to have warmed up the blind man even more and he allowed Sirius to work for several hours with the spanner, to adjust the engine bolts back to the state of mechanic perfection, after they had been made loose by inexpert wizard hands. Phineas then continued performing the necessary charms and he finished by rubbing some freshly concocted potion over the seat and the steering wheel.

"You changed the composition and the ingredients of the standard Broom Maintenance Kit to ensure the airworthiness of the device?" asked Sirius with a hint of admiration.

"You should have said time-worthiness and deep-space-worthiness but yes, that is what I essentially did. Hey, why did you mention flying? You didn't perchance own a flying motorbike in your time, did you?" asked Phineas Nigellus cautiously and Sirius grinned: "One of the reasons my mother disowned me and blasted me from the family tree."

When there was no reaction, Sirius continued, unable to hold off a mood for unwanted confessions after several days of forced silence: "It made me feel whole again, flying my bike or running on four paws until my lungs would hurt. It set me free from my inner disorder and the world's cruelty. It felt like I was burning bright and I loved every single moment of it. Does it make any sense to you?"

"Personally I've never been that passionate. I must say that you have some very interesting urges, Sirius, quite rare for a Slytherin-"

"Who said I was a Slytherin? I was sorted in Gryffindor!" Sirius stated proudly expecting to be Crucioed or worse in return.

"GRYFFINDOR?! The one and only in the Black family since the foundation of Hogwarts!" Phineas Nigellus jumped on his feet and started shaking. If Sirius didn't know that the old man could not see, he could swear that he'd glimpsed something akin to religious trance in his eyes, entrenched deep in the narrow semi-smile that appeared in the corner of his lips. There was a strange kind of beauty to the emotional state he displayed, jaws tight and unseeing eyes wide open.

Sirius waited.

The expected curse didn't come as his great-great-grandfather gasped for air and took his time to recover from what gave him apparently a very profound shock.

"Well, isn't that a surprise?" Phineas spat out and said nothing more on the subject.

For the rest of the evening and in the next days they worked together on the motorcycle in almost total but somehow companionable silence. Phineas Nigellus observed Sirius with his usual malicious sneer, not putting his mask down for once. After a week, he declared the machine ready for try-out and they started thinking about destination Sirius would try to reach. They wanted to try something less ambitious for the first attempt, instead of a big temporal leap, so that Sirius could find Phineas Nigellus alive to help him out, if things went terribly wrong and if Sirius got stuck in yet another place and time where he never intended to be.

Phineas mulled over Sirius's Grim aspect on several occasions during their discussions until Sirius cornered him, fed up with the Grim gibberish: "What's the big deal? You secretly own a crystal ball and fancy yourself a Seer? Have you ever seen the Grim before? You're afraid of it or what?"

"Not me. But a recollection of circumstances leading to Percival Dumbledore's death speaks of sighting such animal near him shortly before he died. I… I dismissed the occurrence as a story to frighten small wizarding children. But now I begin to suspect it was the truth."

"Isn't all this time travel theory about not changing the past, just passively experiencing it?"

"In part it is. But there are also examples where some alterations are meant to be. The fact that they come to pass makes them necessary. Then they stop being changes and become an essential parts of history as we know it. For example, I don't believe that the Veil took you accidentally to meet Percival's daughter. And if someone recorded your Animagus form in great detail next to Percival before he died, maybe you were meant to be there. We have found our destination!"

"Where did Percival die?" asked Sirius boringly.

"Why, of course, in Azkaban, where else? He was sent there for killing those Muggle boys who dishonoured Ariana... It was one of the prison guards who spotted and described the Grim."

Sirius swallowed. That was the one place in the world he never wanted to go back again, past, future or present.

"I would do the same if someone dishonoured my daughter," commented Phineas misinterpreting Sirius's unease.

"They didn't dishonour her!" Sirius barked out, offended and overprotective of Ariana.

"Good heavens!" said Phineas and sat down. "How would you know?"

"Well she seemed like a big girl to me! Merlin, she's not that much younger than me, I mean she's actually quite a bit older but that's not the point... She talked to me about her previous lover! I had no idea that she lived as a hermit until I came along! And she's so amazing, I couldn't hold myself together when she… We both, kind of, couldn't help it, at least I think so!" Sirius explained without thinking, in too many incoherent words, his pale complexity acquiring a beautiful shade of pink.

"Sirius! You messed with my best friend's daughter!"

"I didn't know he was your best friend!" Sirius yelled back embarrassed as a child caught stealing sweets from the kitchen. "Damn it, I didn't know you at all except as a ranting old portrait in one of the guest rooms!"

"Should I take that as a compliment?"

"Yes! No… Wait, was Percival Dumbledore really your best friend?"

"Right," said Phineas avoiding a direct answer to that question in a steady but nonetheless murderous tone. "Right. You really ought to see Percival and ask for her hand!"

Sirius preferred not to instruct his great-great-grandfather about the changed morality of relationships between 1925 and 1996. Unwillingly, he imagined Ariana in a long pale vanilla coloured dress awaiting the traditional binding ceremony. He would approach her in black robes and their hair would mingle in the wind. _The binding would have to take place in the open, under the star_ s, he concluded, _and none of us would ever live imprisoned again._

 _Except that none of it will ever happen,_ thought Sirius, after a thorough reality check finally sunk in.

"Sirius, listen to me!" said Phineas misunderstanding Sirius's silence one more time for reluctance to meet Percival. "Percival could give you impartial information about the Veil of Death. It was in his possession and he was the biggest expert ever on Muggle objects with magical properties!"

"Your friend Percival got the painting that had turned into the Veil of Death as a present from a young man you mentioned to me, Albus's quaint friend Gellert Grindelwald, who will by the way become the next Dark Lord if you really want to know," to Sirius's great surprise Phineas Nigellus snorted as if he wasn't actually approving of dark lords as a phenomenon. Or perhaps he regretted not being able to become one himself due to his disability.

"That thing is dark magic!" continued Sirius. "Muggle object with magical properties doesn't come close to describing what that thing is! I passed through it, I should know! You hear the whispers and they take you away…"

"Sirius, Percival was firmly on the side of the light. He wouldn't have kept a dark magic object. He wouldn't have put it nowhere near his family. Give some credit to his intelligence, for Merlin's sake. Perhaps he was just a little bit smarter than Greenywald. I am sure that if he had kept that painting, or Veil, it was for a purpose," Phineas continued talking with a voice of reason. "From my own investigations in time travel, I believe that you cannot use the Veil another time as even your first usage was risky. I believe you are now neither dead, nor fully alive, and not entirely present in any time period but in reality somewhere in between."

"Out of time, am I? How convenient! A test subject for you evil purposes, that's how you see me. Why don't you finally tell me the truth of what you want from me? Rest assured that I can handle it!" thundered Sirius.

"Sirius, all I'm saying is that you have to find a way to assert yourself fully, body and soul, in one of the possible realities," responded Phineas with super human patience. "Percival could give you a second expert opinion."

"And he's not a Black so maybe you would believe him," the old man hammered in a defeated voice laced with toxic cynicism.

Sirius decided to disregard the offence and the hurt palpable in the old man's words. He nevertheless bit an angry retort on his tongue and stared stoically forward unwilling to further the discussion.

"And if you're too stubborn to accept his help, the least you should do is propose to his daughter. What if she's pregnant?"

At the word pregnant Sirius saw red. It couldn't be! But what if? Either way, what happened was exclusively between Ariana and himself. Crazy old relatives had nothing to do with it.

"Yeah, right, as you proposed to… what was she called again, Vanna Prince?" Sirius shouted and waved his own wand, transfiguring one of the enchanted stars above them into a silvery illusion of Phineas' lost love. His ancestor turned purple with rage and grew in height with help of some dark charm. Looming menacingly over Sirius, he appeared as if he was going to cast an unforgivable jet of green light at any moment.

"Don't talk about things you don't understand!" said the old man underlining every single word.

"Fine! If you do the same! Remember, there's another vice typical of the Blacks…" Phineas looked down at Sirius as if the last of the Blacks was now holding all the answers to unpleasant questions about life.

"We take what we want," said Sirius bitterly. "Even if it's not ours for the taking."

It was Phineas' turn to squirm and turn very small, almost invisible, like a thief caught in the neighbour's orchard, and Sirius had known with certainty that there was much more to be said about the relation of his great-great-grandfather with Vanna Prince than he was keen to admit.

"For what it's worth, Ariana and you would make a fine match despite that she is a half-blood and a Squib. And that is what an honest young wizard should to in your place no matter what," said Phineas with a moral finality in his voice. And then he returned to brooding, fixating and re-fixating several bolts on the motorbike engine, all emotion gone from his demeanour.

The enchanted model of the skies kept turning and emitting sharp metallic sounds when stars rotated lazily in their predestined paths. Sirius looked for the constellation he imagined high above Ariana as she waited to be bound to him. It was a less known one and somewhat difficult to find, but he immediately recognised the familiar shape of the musical instrument, which got its name from a witch who played it first and that witch had been called Lyra.

Lyra was the only star constellation that no one in the Black family was named after as far as wizarding memory went.

It was widely believed that the name was a bad omen and that it would bring a fate worse than death to its namesake. Other pure-blooded families fully shared that point of view. Some Muggle-born witches were called Lyra but the Muggle-borns rarely knew any better and they could be excused for such nonsense: they considered the name to be wonderfully old-fashioned and stylish, in their complete ignorance of the correct wizarding ways. But even in the Muggle loving families among the pure-bloods, like the Potters, or the Weasleys, no one had ever been called Lyra.

Every pure-blooded wizarding child had heard the story about how real Lyra had betrayed her family.

They were dark wizards known for experiments on Muggles, but their discoveries laid the foundations of the wizarding medicine. The healer profession would not exist without them. Lyra tricked them and took all their wands abandoning them to a fate worse than death in hands of the superstitious witch hunting Muggles, armed to their teeth, much more cruel and blood thirsty than Lyra had ever expected. Then she witnessed how her family was burned alive on a stake, and she ran away to a distant land shocked by what she had done.

Lyra was never seen again in her life.

Some said she had found her destiny wherever she went and some said that she didn't. But most agreed that she came back in dreams to help those wizards and witches who needed guidance to find their own way, illuminating the path towards freedom and to one's own choices, difficult as they might be. _Except that this very last part was never being told to children_ , Sirius thought sarcastically, remembering how he first read it in the forbidden section of the Hogwarts library belonging to Albus Dumbledore himself, full of works questioning wizarding traditions on anything from making tea to performing the Unforgivables.

Sirius believed that Lyra, the constellation bearing the name of the first outright blood-traitor recorded in the wizarding world, would be the most suitable celestial body to watch over him and Ariana, should they ever get together. Deep down, he didn't believe that they would. The only thing future was certain to bring was the end of his life. Or worse, another loss of freedom. He knew what he preferred it he could choose. But one could only choose from what came his way and Sirius never made his choices wisely.

Phineas Nigellus woke him up from his reverie all of a sudden and presented him with a green and silver quill and similar kind of parchment. "You may not appreciate the colours," he said, "but it's a Time Spanning Quill and Parchment, another invention of mine that Percival helped me with. You can use it to owl a person you hold dear over space and time. I sometimes write to Vanna in her past when I feel very miserable. She never replies but I know that she's reading my letters."

The old man showed him a pile of gently perfumed lilac coloured rolled parchments holding them with weak hands. "She sends me back empty scrolls."

The smell of wild roses permeated the warm air in the attic and Sirius had a suspicion that the letters were not empty, just charmed against unwanted eyes. _Keep your stupid secrets, great-great-grandfather,_ he thought. _I don't care about them. Or about you._ And even when he thought that, Sirius knew he had just lied to himself. With all ups and downs, since he came to the Grimmauld Place in 1925, he developed a consideration for the old man and his uncontrolled fits of temper, so similar to Sirius's own.

"I'm giving you this because I'm really getting fed up of the heart-broken expression you've been wearing since you got stranded here with me," added Phineas as if he could read one part of his thoughts. "So if you want, take a piece of parchment and lay your heart on it if you can. Put the quill in your letter when you owl it and instruct her to use it if she wants to write back to you."

The younger man puffed, undecided, in denial of the unfair description accusing him of the weakness called love, which had never been his in the past.

 _Why not try it?_ he thought. _What is there to loose?_

Sirius was fond of writing letters. He had written numerous times to Harry when Sirius was in hiding, and Harry was attending Hogwarts. As a teenager he would write every summer to his best friend James, Harry's father, before he ran away from home and James' parents took him in. But he had never, ever written to a woman.

What could you say to a woman who seemed so upset about totally unimportant concept of honour after you made love to her on the stone floor with passion you never knew you possessed and then she just knocked you out cold and travelled to the future? What do you say to a woman with knee length blond-orange hair who held on to you as tightly on that floor as if she was a Devil's Snare you would let strangulate you willingly, and then lay down your last breath at her feet in unmeasured devotion? Sirius wished for an opportunity to kiss every last inch of her body if they ever met again.

 _She would be scandalized,_ he thought, grinning like an idiot. He imagined kissing her on places that the proper pure-blooded upbringing forbid to be touched upon, even between spouses, as such frivolous actions did not serve the only true purpose of a traditional bonding - procreation. Marriage was about having heirs, not about adoring your partner with all your being and letting it show. But Sirius soon learned better from the whispering of the Muggle-borns in Hogwarts and has known about the reckless abandon of the senses in his later teenage years. What he had never known yet, was that he could want it all with someone, the most formal bond and the most improper passion.

His thoughts drifted further, aimlessly, to how even Regulus learned better before he died, and how a radiant smile Narcissa wore for days after she got married clearly showed that Lucius did not respect honourable pure-blooded traditions at least in his marriage bed.

And what if Phineas was simply lying? There was only one way to find out, so Sirius accepted the Quill and the Parchment offered by the old wrinkled hands and started writing.

_"Dear Ariana,_

_I hope that this letter finds you well. I met my relative you mentioned to me, Phineas Nigellus, and I'm staying with him now. He borrowed me his Time-Spanning Quill. Please use it to answer me and owl it back with your letter._

_Please._

_I miss you tremendously._

_Respectfully yours,_

_Sirius"_

Not quite happy about his clumsy phrases, that looked so heartless on the parchment, he nevertheless rolled it gently around the quill and tied the small bundle to a leg of one of the miniature brown owls who had shared the attic with them since Sirius arrived.

The owl started spinning as if it had caught a Portkey by mistake and then it disappeared.

"So, when do I go to Azkaban?" he asked when the owl was gone. "I'd like to be done with it. It's not like it's one of my favourite places..."

"Soon, Sirius," muttered his ancestor. "Very soon."

Had Sirius paid any attention, he would have noticed an expression unmistakably charged with hidden intentions on the once handsome face of Phineas Nigellus Black at the mention of the name Azkaban. Unseeing eyes pierced Sirius first and then turned slowly towards a tiny version of the Black family tree, carved in ivory, attached to one of the walls. It was sculpted to fit the blind, just like the unique model of the moving skies.

After all, there was one more defect common to all the Blacks. Phineas Nigellus, just like all other members of the family, had an agenda of his own. And he would follow it against all odds, even neglecting the basic instinct of all living beings for self-preservation.

Quietly, they took to motorcycle adjustments again. Phineas had already gained some dexterity and Sirius, as always, found that in the absence of long exhausting run through the woods in his dog form, to wind down his innate impatience and fury, manual work helped.


	14. Time-Spanned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where love is confessed over space and time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.  
> Thank you for reading.

_"Dear Sirius,_

_I am surprised that you still wanted to contact me after my treatment of you. Please accept my apologies. I am so sorry for taking your rightful place in this time. The experts here say that you should have come back through the Veil and not I, and that the Veil is now closed for your return._

_In my defence I have to state that I have read much more than I have lived and I still have to learn so much about people._

_First of all, you will want to know that Harry Potter is alive and well. No one in the Order knows exactly where he is but he is free and on the move, plotting to destroy the Dark Lord. I am giving the Dark Lord the courtesy he otherwise does not deserve because they did something to the mentioning of his name to make it traceable to his followers. Make sure_ _ not to use it _ _if you ever write back._

_Harry embarked on a personal quest that Albus pointed out to him in part, but not even Albus knows exactly what all has to be done before the very end. As you may have noticed, I was never exactly fond of my older brother but I believe that he is right about this one thing._

_The Dark Lord is in charge of the wizarding world, not yet in the open, but the Ministry is his for all purposes. The Order is doing everything to protect wizards and Muggles alike until there is a change in tide._

_Oh, I forget. Albus is dead. But his portrait in Hogwarts is most talkative. He gave me your message. At least I think that the message came from you. I will not lie to you. Sirius, not anymore, for your words have moved my heart._

_But now I have learned more about your society and your morality and I understand that you are in no way bound to me only because I tricked you to spend a few months with me and cook for me, letting you believe that you had died. Not even because we… Well… you know._

_I just couldn't bear the thought of being alone again after I experienced the companionship we shared and I beg your forgiveness for giving in to my weakness._

_I hope that you will nevertheless come back to this time, not to me, but to all the people who love you and mourn you, most of all to your godson._

_I want to help as much as I can in the war against darkness. I am free now, free to live in the darkness. Even so, this darkness has so much more purpose than my previous lamentable existence and I am so grateful to you for unwillingly making all this possible._

_I hope that one day I will be free to live in the light._

_And I hope that you will forgive me._

_Sincerely,_

_Ariana"_

xxxxxxxx

_"Dear Ariana,_

_I haven't been happier for a long time! It's great to receive your letter and to learn that Harry is doing well._

_I'm glad that you enjoyed my cooking (evil grin). Not many people did._

_Please, let me ask you a question. Why did you have to petrify me and then jump into the Veil? For all you knew you could have died. I nearly died listening to the conversation of all four of you and not being able to help. Why didn't you let me help you or explain to your brothers? You're a smart girl and you must have figured out from our conversations that Albus defeated Grindelwald in 1945. If you could have heard him talking to the Veil after you left, you would have no doubt left, like I had none, that the main reason Albus fought Grindelwald later on was whatever he had done to you._

_And I don't even want to begin to imagine what exactly Grindelwald did to you because that would send me on a murderous quest to find him and I should concentrate my efforts to return and do my part for Harry and for the Order. Are you a member now as well? Please take care! Membership has its risks._

_I'm so sorry about Albus. How did he die?_

_Phineas here also thinks that I cannot use the Veil anymore, not if I want to go back to the place where I came from. It's great to hear some independent advice that says the same but I sometimes doubt that you are not you but an entity my great-great-grandfather conjured to convince me of his theories. After all, he gave me the Quill and I told him all about you, well, most of it. I didn't want to but somehow it came out._

_I wish to believe so much that this is you and that you will write to me again._

_Maybe I will stay sane if you do._

_Yours,_

_Sirius"_

Xxxxxxxxx

_"Dear Sirius,_

_First of all, to dissipate all doubts that this is me and not anyone else, I will spell out some details I consider private in our acquaintance and I would expect that you haven't divulged them to anyone, least of all to any of your family members._

_When you first met me, you tried to kiss me thinking I was a product of your imagination. I was offended and I blasted you away, almost back into that painting. Later when Grindelwald threatened me, you tore at his throat. You were in your dog form at that time. And when Grindelwald left, we just couldn't let go of each other on the floor, on the same spot where you nearly butchered him. It was most uncomfortable, and I blush every time when I remember what we did, but we got so lost in one another that nothing else mattered._

_I bled on that floor._

_You just kept on repeating I was yours after we were done. Do you still remember that? You seemed so out of phase when you spoke and I became so afraid when I sensed Grindelwald coming that I lured you into a Body Binding spell._

_You see, I have always been rather unusual and I can sense people approaching, people I know._

_Do you believe me now?_

_Albus's death appears to be a Death Eaters victory now. Still, don't mourn him for he went as he would have wanted to go. Trust me to know Albus much better then you do._

_You could say that I am a member of the Order now. Even if most people believe I am the portrait in Abeforth's Inn (he's a barman in Hog's Head in case you didn't know) and a few selected others believe me to be his daughter. We are currently trying to convert some of the Death Eaters to the good side or at best instigate doubt in them about their loyalty to the Dark Lord. It appears that doubts make them less cruel to others in most cases so lives are saved._

_I take part in a clandestine wireless programme entitled Potterwatch where my code name is Orange. I tell all who listen how I survived being imprisoned by Grindelwald and it seems that my story, odd as it may be, gives others hope. Even Wizarding Wireless Network News recently illegally copied one of my broadcasts (pirating the pirates!) and played it several times to gain audiences. They figured they could do it as I never spoke openly against the Dark Lord of this time._

_Harry is still alive and well._

_He was in your house at Grimmauld Place and made it his own – apparently he even befriended that horrible house elf or yours who is now working for him. I visited your house after Harry left with Severus (you know him, don't you?) and I had the honour to meet a charming portrait of your late mother. She must have been a very peculiar woman. Luckily, we have met Val Peverell. Her father was an old friend of Aberforth and they recently returned from Brazil. Can you believe that your mother gets quiet when she walks in? Val has a special influence on people. She's a healer and she has been helping me to come to terms with my disabilities in doing magic._

_Lately she left me a bit on my own, I wish I could understand why. She acted like my best friend until one night Severus returned to Hogwarts almost frozen to death. I have no idea what my stupid portrait of a brother sent him to do, but it nearly cost him his life. He had fever and muttered something about delivering a sword, but he wouldn't go to rest, insisting he had to correct some potion homework of the sixth years. It was in the middle of the night so I stunned him and levitated him to his bed and did as my mother would do for my father, I took off his socks and shoes and rubbed his feet to make them warm again. He had a crust of ice around his toes. I fell asleep in a chair next to his bed. Val came in the morning and found me with his feet in my lap. She's been avoiding me ever since and when I tried to ask her directly what I did wrong she just shot back at me that it was not my fault that I had red hair and she did not._

_People are so strange._

_Rumour has it that very recently Harry and his two friends broke into Gringotts and stole something from the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange. Albus seems to think this is an excellent sign. Severus is depressed about it. I forgot to mention he's the Headmaster now. He believes that the final battle against the darkness will come to Hogwarts very soon and we have to prepare to protect the students._

_I also forgot to mention earlier that Phineas Nigellus was a good friend of my father and my father was a good man, with much bigger heart then Albus's for sure, and a much greater scholar than my dearest brother Aberforth. He should never have gone to Azkaban for my sake. I have heard a lot about the Black family fame over here and after meeting your mother's portrait I really don't know if you can trust this relative of yours, friend of my father of not. I hope you can, for your sake._

_If it is of any help a portrait of Phineas Nigellus from your house is now with Harry and is keeping us informed. I dare say he is a somewhat kinder character then your mother despite being obnoxious and arrogant._

_As to why I didn't let you help me, please give me some time and I will tell you in more detail._

_It' s just so difficult to talk about it right now._

_Yours,_

_Ariana"_

_xxxxxxxx_

_"Why, Ariana, why?_

_Why did you do what you did to me? My project to return to you is not advancing and my desperation lies heavy on me. I should be happy and I am happy that Harry is doing so well, but in the short time we spent together I have become much more dependent on you that I could ever imagine._

_I will try and be sincere to you as you said you would not lie to me any more and I hope to Merlin that my confession does not frighten you._

_Azkaban changed me, the darkness within me was brought too close to the surface, wishing to burst out and drown all hope. I left there much more then my youth. In my nightmares, my soul has been sucked out and I was forced to live a life of pretence, I who yearned for sincerity and trust in my relations with people._

_The darkness in my soul has always been powerful, lurking in the corners of my mind. When I was young I ran. I ran with my friends, I ran from the shadow in the dark. They kept me afloat and I loved them so much in return. I bared my soul to my friends. Many years later I escaped from Azkaban and I ran for my life. I ran for my innocence. I ran to save my godson and tell him the truth. I did not feel worthy of the affection he gave me when he realised the truth but I loved him for it even more and I went on._

_Then I died, at least that was what I thought. I couldn't bear being alone, being with you, being away from Harry and from my friends. I couldn't stand being myself. I ran on the beach and in the streets of the village near the house we shared. I wanted to leave you. I wanted to run until I would disappear._

_But soon I discovered you kept all my phantoms at bay. I didn't have a single nightmare when we held each other and whispered our good nights. I would pass out in your scent, sharp and fresh like the morning sun._

_I thought that in my case the Amortentia potion smelled of freedom. (Severus will tell you what it is if you don't know, but please, please, don't show him this letter! Don't let him see how pathetic I am.)_

_I was wrong. Amortentia, for me, smells of you, Ariana._

_And then finally a day came and I realised that I wasn't running away anymore._

_I was running back to you._

_When I saw Grindelwald making advances on you, I knew that no wizard could lay a finger on you for me to let him live and I recognised my feelings for what they were._

_You may never love me, but I do love you. From the darkness of my Black heart._

_Yours,_

_Forever,_

_Sirius_

_P. S. Concerning this Val person, next time Snape is a mess, let her rub his feet. It's what healers do. And it will make me feel better about it too."_

_xxxxxxxxx_

_"Sirius,_

_I was 7 when three Muggle boys attacked me. They left me in a bloody mess and I nearly died. The Healers said I was raped. I didn't know the meaning of that word before but I soon realised that it meant I could not marry or have children. Worse, I was incapacitated in my use of magic and while I wasn't properly a Squib, I represented danger for the people around me. I could never be properly trained, or so I was told. For all purposes my life was over before it began._

_My father pursued an unnecessary vengeance only to die in Azkaban._

_Albus became responsible for all of us and he tried to be kind. He showered me in books and I soon learned all magical theory which I could not put it in practice, alas, not willingly. I lived well until the horrible day when I accidentally caused a fire killing my mother._

_Shortly after Albus brought home his best friend, Gellert, and presented him to me as a new healer._

_Gellert took me with him and locked me up in a stone house above the sea, for my own good, he said. And he said Albus was crying and didn't want to see me._

_Gellert treated me gently at first. With time he would do things to me, things that none of my books described. He would kiss me and touch me and then he truly raped me from behind, many times. He would whisper to me that he loved me as tainted as I was and that his way was safe not to cause an unwanted pregnancy._

_For a time I thought I could return his affection as it was the only one I was ever likely to receive. Until he said I had to marry him. Only then would he recommend to Albus to release me from imprisonment as I was now doing so much better._

_I said no._

_Why would I have to marry him? I understood at that moment that there was something wrong with the picture he was showing me both about my condition and about our relationship to each other._

_Gellert hardened before my refusal and left. He promised to come back only after I realised what was good for me. So he didn't return for a month and I started rationing food, fearing I would die from hunger and Gellert would then victoriously bring my lifeless corpse to Albus and Abeforth._

_Then you came._

_I watched you for a week, dying from thirst. You triggered some kind of intruder alert Gellert set against anyone but himself when the painting kicked you out. I couldn't let you die. I wished you to live, more than I ever wished for anything. You were my only way out of my situation, if there was one at all. So my magic came back to me and destroyed the wall between us._

_My magic came back to me and it didn't cause a total devastation. I smile every time when I remember that moment._

_So I analysed it and figured Gellert must have been doing something to me other than attempting to heal me. I remembered a flare of purple smoke I sometimes dreamt about. I dug in my father's exotic scrolls Albus thought of as rubbish, and I found that there were Dark magic spells turning a person's magic to mush depicted as flames of gold, orange and purple, frequently with distinct herbal smell. I remembered the purple colour of my dreams and the smell resembling the natural scent of plants in the landscape surrounding our house. I understood why Gellert chose the location where he locked me up, to explain the smell if Albus or Aberforth ever ventured in when he would cast it on me._

_Gellert wanted to control me, not to heal me._

_I went to test my theory and I set my mind on practising simple spells. You see, the Dumbledores have always been apt for wandless and wordless magic and I was no exception. Never having a wand, my senses have only been made more acute. I did that when you slept or when you went out and the results were better and more controlled every day._

_I was so busy with learning about myself that I cannot pinpoint exactly when I started noticing you. On the first day you lay in my lap and I admired your hair and your face as you gazed at me when you woke up. No one has ever looked at me that way._

_I was enraged when you tried to kiss me, images of Gellert polluting my mind, and positively surprised when you just cooled down and promised to treat me as a lady after I drove you away._

_Still I remained indifferent to you. There was entirely too much left to learn about myself. I cooked and cleaned with magic, I even repaired your scratches and your teeth at night when you slept. I transfigured the house to make it more habitable. You didn't seem to notice any of this but slowly you seemed happier._

_You couldn't have known but I was pretty much repulsed with human touch when we met as for me it never bode well._

_Still, I never questioned the sleeping arrangement we developed as I had no idea hugging was improper. Please don't laugh at me for my old fashioned ideas but Gellert never hugged me and my mother who explained to me about rape before she died warned me against untoward kisses but not against hugs._

_I knew you had nightmares in the first weeks when we didn't sleep close to each other and I noticed that in my arms you didn't. And I felt… I cannot begin to tell you how I felt. Safe, secure, normal, accepted. You would smile and I would wince and open my mouth to tell you the truth. You were not dead, not dead, you were very much alive. You could leave me._

_I never said anything. I would just hug you until all my lights would go out. You didn't seem to mind._

_Until the day you saved me from Gellert and I wanted all the things a woman could want from a man, even if good society I was raised in thought of them as shameful and unfitting for a girl before marriage, I wanted all those things with you._

_I wanted you to be my lover the way Gellert never was._

_The way no one ever was._

_My blood on that floor was the final disillusion about my previous life. You see, I have never been raped by those Muggles. My father had died in vain. The first healers made a mistake in a bloody mess made of me and Gellert never corrected them. He must have known the truth yet he let me believe the worst of me, with my morality standards for proper ladies in 1920s, only to abuse me himself, in line with his own peculiar taste in those matters._

_I remembered some of the dark magic books Albus gave me describing some awful breeding techniques and talented offspring powerful wizards and witches could conceive. All sources agreed on one precondition: both parties had to enter the marriage bond willingly and not make an attempt at the actual conception before the bonding. Hence Gellert's preferences in his relationship with me, I reckon. It would be easier to accept that he did it that way because he simply enjoyed it._

_Since I live here, I find that the Witch Weekly is an excellent source on all very different things different people can find exciting, or repulsive, at times._

_But all Gellert ever wanted was to control me and use me for his ends. It was finally all clear in my mind. He abused Albus's trust and he almost tricked me into giving him mine._

_This brings us to why I did what I did to you. The Blacks are not the only wizarding family infamous for their bad temper. I'm sure that in your time you must have seen Albus furious once in a while. So I knocked you out to get you out of my way. I had all intention to blast Gellert to oblivion with my newly discovered magical prowess, make Albus see the truth and then see what to do with you. Selfish, I know. I'm sorry that you witnessed the scene that followed. I am still a freak in need of magical education after all so my spell went wrong – my intention was for you not to see or hear a thing._

_Gellert was an extremely dangerous wizard and I knew he was going to return with Albus to punish me. I didn't count on his dark mind ravaging spell to be as strong as it was, the first time I was able to recognise it when he cast it on me. I realised that Albus and Aberforth could not see it because he was somehow masking it from others. A simple Disillusionment Charm, perhaps. We don't notice what we don't expect to be there._

_I could barely defend myself with a very weak counter spell at the beginner level. I was about to lose my mind and my magic again until hushed clear voices started calling me from that painting that brought you to me. I anticipated the curse before it came. I knew it would be a killing curse cast at me. And I knew it was going to be Gellert making it look like a rebound from one of my brothers to blame them. The voices cradled me like a baby and sang to me about it. They called me in. Without thinking I launched the truth about Gellert into the open for Albus and Aberforth to see_

_I was glad to see the understanding on both my brothers' faces as the voices carried me away. And only when the green light finally struck me, I could feel that my soul was wounded, cut in hundred pieces for leaving you._

_I regretted deeply that the first real love marks I wore in my life were the only way to illustrate to my brothers the brutal reality of the existence they unknowingly chose for me with the best of intentions._

_I wanted to shout to you that I would wear your marks proudly for all to see, but there was no time._

_There is one other reason I petrified you, Sirius. If I didn't, Gellert would have hurt you. And I could not allow this to happen._

_I didn't know then, but I know now. I love you more than anything in the world._

_I don't care about what Azkaban did to you, or about the darkness in your soul. Merlin knows I harbour enough darkness in mine._

_There is something wonderful I still have to tell you about, but right now I am joining Severus and Val on an important Order mission. I will bear in mind your comment about rubbing feet._

_Forgive me for cutting this short._

_Yours, until the end of time,_

_Ariana"_

_xxxxxxxxxx_

_"Love,_

_There is nothing more wonderful you could possibly tell me than what you already did._

_Hold on._

_I will see you soon._

_Sirius"_


	15. The Tactics of Confusing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a happy Death Eater's existence is turned upside down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.
> 
> Merry Christmas everyone

Severus Snape lifted the ghost repelling wards in one of the rooms on the ground floor of Malfoy Manor, temporarily setting a crate full of potion ingredients to the ground. A tall, pearl-coloured silhouette of an elegant woman with knee-length hair glided over the floors behind him, still holding a green and silver quill and a piece of parchment brought to her by a strange brown owl the moment they Apparated together in front of the Manor, holding hands.

Snape wondered what the missive contained but Ariana had never volunteered to tell him anything so far. She would keep dead silent whenever those letters arrived and he was too proud to ask directly.

They were late because she took a minute to take a look at the latest parchment from the unknown sender, and she seemed... content... at the very least.

Severus hated change in plans as it could only mean that things would go from bad to worse, a noble sentiment soon proven true by the abrupt entry of Bellatrix Lestrange, more maniacal than ever, overeager to prove to the Dark Lord her continued worth after the fiasco of catching Potter and letting him slip away.

"Snapey boy. I came to check that you indeed brought this abomination to our Master. He should soon return from his trip to Diagon Alley and wishes to see her immediately."

"Bellatrix, my dear, so nice to see you too," said Snape ceremoniously. "As a matter of fact I have to brew a potion for our Lord and I would love to start immediately. Perhaps you could keep our guest company and escort her to our Master when he arrives."

Severus left with his ingredients, hoping that the insane plan would work. He walked towards the improvised potion laboratory on the level with the many cellars and dungeons of the Manor, passing next to the empty den of the Voldemort's giant snake companion Nagini, where he innocently stumbled over his long black robes just in front of the barred door. A tiny lizard immediately left the crate, using Snape's flying robes as a cover, and crawled into the snake's lair through the bars. _So far, so good, Val_ , he thought as he strode away, cursing his clumsiness in case anyone had been watching.

Bellatrix Lestrange circled the ghost admiring her beauty. There was something ethereal yet firm about the apparition and Bellatrix felt queasy. She searched for a cause of this feeling that few people could wake inside her at all. The ghost radiated comfort, a mood no one should enjoy in the gloomy rooms of Malfoy Manor, while waiting to be brought before the Dark Lord in person. Bellatrix's sight stopped at the green and silver quill and parchment the apparition was seizing in her immaterial hands. With a flick of her wand, both items ended in Bellatrix's possession.

"Well, well... Oh my! Mudblood tricks. Soon to be dead Mudblood tricks," she giggled. "Tell me what this is and what it does or you will wish you did."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs Lestrange. I assume that your lack of manners is due to a recent break in in your vault in Gringgots. What was stolen? Your personal stash of rejuvenating potions?"

"No one touched my vault," Bellatrix said coldly. "The Dark Lord in his great wisdom has had it watched after we lost Harry Potter."

The ghost continued talking, imitating a cold tone of a living dark witch: "Or did you readopt your maiden name, Miss Black? I hear that your husband has recently abandoned you for another pure-blooded witch, was it Cecilia Avery? Something about barren wives and necessity to produce heirs..."

"Answer my question!" Bellatrix's ruined face turned fierce. She was still good looking despite all, especially when she was enraged, but she didn't seem to know it herself. "What is this quill?"

Bellatrix only knew the cold joy of doing evil. It kept her alive. It may have kept her sane in Azkaban.

"Oh, just a lovers' thing," Ariana replied carefully.

"If you cared for someone somewhere, you could write that person a letter and it would always reach its destination. If you were loved back, you would be answered. A small detail, you have to include the quill with the parchment so that you can get your reply," Ariana elaborated calmly, looking Bellatrix directly in the eyes. "Then again, you do not believe in such a trivial thing. Love! What is love if you can have power?"

"Whose letter is this?"

"Why, from your cousin, Sirius Black. Do you remember him? Love affairs among us ghosts can be very passionate."

"NONSENSE!" Bellatrix shrieked.

"Well, the relationship between the Bloody Baron and the Grey Lady in Hogwarts has been quite famous, I am sure even you must have heard about it when you were a student," Ariana continued in a monotonous, mocking tone, suitable for high society gathering, that would have shamed even Lucius Malfoy.

"My cousin is dead," Bellatrix said sheepishly as if she had to remind herself of the truth she had once known.

"But of course he is. So am I," stated Ariana, quietly. "You killed him. You cannot boost that you killed me, though."

Bellatrix started pacing around the room, looking at the quill and parchment as if they would start burning her hands any moment.

"May I call you Bella? I rather like the sound of it. I believe that is how Sirius called you when you were children. Do you know he was impressed by you when you got engaged to Rodolphus? He never saw anyone so much in love and he hoped that one day he would love someone as much as you seemed to love your husband-to-be? Pity how the times have changed..." Ariana knew that the success of their mission depended on her stalling to give Severus and Val more time.

"You filthy Mudblood..."

"A half-blood, if I may correct my blood status. Tell me, Bella, how does it feel? To be old, ruined and alone? I suppose I should thank you," Ariana added sincerely, transparent eyes twinkling brightly, "I would have never met Sirius if it wasn't for you."

"CRUCIO!"

The feminine ghost glided merrily in amusement: "The Unforgivable curses have no effect whatsoever on ghosts, Bella, you should know that. It's a lesson in Defence Against the Dark Artas for Hogwarts' fourth years. You might try the Ghost Vanishing Spell, I am sure you know that one too. But then, what would your Lord say? He might become displeased if you have me vanish before time."

"Do you think he loves you, Bella?" asked Ariana in a girlish, high-pitched voice, about to lose her soft demeanour.

For Ariana was not a ghost, and it took all her strength to withstand the pain of the Cruciatus curse and to continue talking as if nothing was going on. Luckily, the monologue prepared by Severus (and polished further by Ariana with some useful information from Sirius not even Snape knew about) seemed to confuse Bellatrix further. There was a huge question mark of uncertainty all over the older woman's face as she forgot to continue her own curse, unsure of how to proceed. Ariana focused on her role with all her might and tried to ignore the unbearable pain. Aching all over, she controlled the urge to shiver and scream.

She continued speaking in a slow motion, hoping that the fact she could barely talk would be perceived as cold arrogance. "I will tell you a secret. Tom Riddle doesn't love you. He despises you and your loyalty. He's just using you for his ends. I should know."

"You know nothing you filth! He will allow me to destroy you once he is done with you!"

"He might. It doesn't change the fact that he doesn't love you. I am sure of it, Bella. I was a captive of Gellert Grindelwald once as you must have heard on the _Wizarding Wireless Network News_ as I supposed you don't really listen to _Potterwatch_. Have you ever heard of him? Voldemort is but an amateur when compared to Grindelwald at the height of his power. Be as it may, your infatuation with one is beside the point. The dark lords don't love anyone but themselves."

"Why do you care?"

Ariana was glad that the conversation changed direction. J _ust as Severus predicted_ , she thought, _trust a Slytherin to tell you how to goad a person._ Bellatrix looked different. She was dazed and marvellous, the wrinkles around her eyes hid a whirlwind of emotions.

"I don't actually. You are still beautiful, you know. When you are angry, that is. You could do so much better!"

"What is that to you, Mudblood?"

"Half-blood" Ariana corrected carefully. "As I said, I don't really care, but Sirius does. He forgave you. He says it is not your fault that you have turned into the bloody lunatic in the loving family both of you shared. He's sorry that Rodolphus was not what you thought he was."

Ariana was sure that Sirius never thought anything remotely similar but mentioning him certainly had an effect on Bella's female psychology. She turned into an effigy of a heroine from an old Greek tragedy Ariana saw performed in a Muggle theatre with her mother, when she was about 13 years old. Ariana had cried at that time. The unfortunate witch, or sorceress as Muggles preferred to say, was called Medea and she killed her children because she had become obsessed with an unworthy man. Ariana shuddered at the thought of what Bellatrix was capable of doing in the service of an unworthy wizard.

"Bella, listen to me. You are a witch. Your life span is rather long-"

"-Not for the Blacks, you fool. Don't you know about the curse?" Bella interrupted.

"Long or short, we're talking about your life, not mine. You should stop wasting it. Run before your lover sends you to your untimely death on his bidding," Ariana pleaded. "I don't expect you to believe me. You can take a look yourself this evening in the Dumbledore's Pensieve in the Headmaster's office in Hogwarts. And who knows, the Headmaster might appreciate the company of another Death Eater for dinner."

"Snape knows nothing!" Bellatrix shouted but with far less conviction.

"I agree. He doesn't. But Dumbledore did."

"What would you know about Dumbledore?"

Ariana ignored the question, sensing the arrival of real danger and the simultaneous Confundus Charm being added to the Anti-Apparition wards of the Manor making them go haywire, but the Death Eaters could only notice the anomaly if they would put all the wards down and than up again, which they were unlikely to do. It meant that Val and Severus were done and it was time for her great solo act that evening, her most risky performance since she had joined the fight against Voldemort.

 _One thing left to check up of the latest gossips,_ Ariana thought and observed: "You wield a rather supple wand, and yet Mr Olivander thought of your own as unyielding."

Bellatrix lied with conviction: "My wand was snapped in Azkaban, I use my aunt Walburga's wand ever since. Dragon heartstring and elder, a bit shorter than mine."

"Interesting choice of wood, and another proof that Voldemort doesn't care about you or he would notice you have changed your wand," said Ariana, the frightened flash on Bella's face confirming her certainty that at least one bit of rumours were true. Harry Potter and his friends did steal Bellatrix's wand, which hit Sirius with the Killing Curse, when they escaped the Manor with Aberforth's help, but they had not broken into Gringgots, not yet. She hoped Severus would become less grumpy when he heard the news.

Blessing Severus for teaching her his best silky tone used to intimidate people and Val for passing on a precious bit of information from her pub, she provoked further, "Bella, if I were you I would hide that parchment and quill. Not that you will ever really need them. Still, you never know. But it will certainly not do for your Dark Lord to see them. If he does, I will be forced to inform him about you having a potion with a certain young, red haired wizard the other night."

Bellatrix opened her mouth to gasp for air, which didn't seem to reach her lungs any more from sheer shock. Her Dark Mark could not choose a better moment to start burning, and Ariana released the breathe she had been holding – it seemed for a moment that Bellatrix was going to physically attack Ariana and blow the entire ghost cover to the skies.

 _The good timing is everything_ , thought Ariana, as she tried to relax and pretend she was controlled by a Ghost Binding Curse placed on her by Bellatrix who was pulling her forward in a lying position so that her body swept all the dust from the tunnel-like corridors of the Malfoy Manor, which led to the audience chamber of the Dark Lord.

Dread hung in the air mixed with cobwebs. Apparently the house elves forgot to clean the Malfoy Manor properly in its new improved function of Lord Voldemort's headquarters.

Voldemort was looming from his seat in the middle of the circle where his faithful Death Eaters would Apparate to his presence, each standing on their marked place within the circle. Quite a number of faces gazed down through their masks at Bellatrix, proud and bare-faced in her place on the Dark Lord's left hand side, staring defiantly forward.

Ariana was curled up on the floor in the middle of the circle, dirty and sweaty, dizzy from being in an induced ghost state, sick from the endured torture and filled with terrible fear. Her shivering back was turned to Voldemort whom she dared not face before being addressed in some form as Severus recommended. She suppressed a short-lived feeling of misplaced euphoria when she noticed how Bellatrix finally did something smart; she and tucked the Time-Spanning Quill and Parchment with Sirius's last letter deep into her black robes.

Nagini strode into the throne room uninvited, royal and grand in her slithering motion. She coiled around Voldemort's torso and neck, barely touching his skull in a sign of affection. No wizard or witch noticed it, but a silvery wisp of memory left Voldemort's head and flew into Nagini's, mouth, tender as a caress between a parent and his young child.

"Severus," Voldemort roared to the man standing on his right hand side, "thank you for your service in bringing this latest Hogwarts abomination to my presence. State your name to my loyal Death Eaters, creature!"

Ariana didn't move when she stated as calm and as slow as possible: "My mother taught me that a gentlewizard should introduce himself first."

There came a moment when all her hope faded. The Time-Spanning Quill was gone and so was her only remaining connection with Sirius. She knew that the chances of Sirius and Phineas Nigellus actually finding a way to travel forward in time with precision were nothing but wishful thinking. She was sure that Voldemort would be able to see through her deception and there would be no Veil this time to contain the jet of green light aimed straight at her heart.

 _The plan_ , she thought, _Severus had a plan._ She felt a familiar feeling of weakness capturing her mind and realised Voldemort must have been using a wordless mind numbing spell just like Gellert did, without the added effects of colour and smell.

"Speak!" Voldemort commanded.

Ariana turned around slowly as an old woman overrun by time. She was now on her knees facing Voldemort.

"Your slave killed my brother…" she mustered a flat murderous tone still trying to shake away the mush spell.

"Say your name! I know who you are but I insist that you personally inform my Death Eaters whose passing they are about to witness," said Voldemort, in a high clear voice.

Ariana rose painfully almost to her full height, choosing to focus on a pair of narrow red eyes so as to escape the new enslavement of her mind. Her transparent eyes twinkled brightly.

"Do you really know who I am?" she asked, softly.

Almost mystic silence invaded the room, filling it with expectations.

"My name is Ariana."

Silence deepened to a sensation of nameless awe.

"Ariana Kendra Hecate Dumbledore."

Voldemort's red eyes narrowed in shock, remembering too well the only wizard he was ever afraid of, contemplating if this was his daughter, his mother, or if she had the unspeakable audacity to lie when faced with her own imminent death.

As if stating her full name broke the mind controlling spell completely, Ariana stood tall. Her natural height was boosted with the fact that ghosts hovered over the ground. Her hair was a veil of glimmering silver flying high above the paved surface of the audience chamber floor, instead of falling heavily down her back.

"I am pleased to have finally met you, Tom. Albus has told me a lot about you."

The atmosphere in the room turned electric with dark magic saturating the air, making it almost impossible to breathe.

"And I am the new leader of the Order of the Phoenix!"

"Evanesco!" was the succinct response from Voldemort. Ariana could see a glint of uncertainty and then sheer jubilation in his eyes when the ghost vanishing spell finally reached her and the Death Eaters witnessed her defeat at the hand of their Lord.

Ariana Apparated in front of the Hogwarts gates a few seconds later, thanking Severus inwardly with all her might. Yes, Voldemort was the mightiest wizard of that time. But he didn't realise that using a killing curse for ghosts did not work on a person transfigured into one using an old fashioned charm that well educated wizards believed to be a story for wizarding children.

 _Not bad for first time Apparating on my own_ , she thought. She did it wandless, wordless and without splinching. Witchcraft was indeed a wonderful thing. And Val was probably right in her diagnosis that the standard Anti-Apparition wards of Malfoy Manor, if unhinged a tiny bit, were not strong enough to include Ariana whose magic was too raw in nature to be contained, almost as if she were not a witch but a magical creature of her own kind.

She hurried up to Hogsmeade to recover from the pain of Cruciatus and the spiritual unease after the mind numbing spell. It was time to doze in her portrait and to forget that day. Maybe she could dream about Sirius and of telling him what she was about to write down before his cousin stole the Time Spanning Quill.

Ariana remembered Severus's and Val's bewilderment when they explained to her that the spell they cast on the Veil the night they saved her could only have recognised and drawn forward blood of Sirius Black. In theory, at least. Val said that since she was a half-blood because of her unknown Muggle-born mother, she may have accidentally attracted Ariana who shared that blood status.

All that might be, but embarrassing as it was, Ariana knew for sure that there was no mistake in their spell, or in the theory that supported it, but she couldn't bring herself to tell them.

They did call forward the blood of Sirius Black.

The blood of his unborn child.

Wondering if there ever was a pregnant ghost haunting Hogwarts before, Ariana finally fell in deep sleep only portraits and expecting mothers could truly appreciate.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later that day Bellatrix and Snape remained alone in the presence of Voldemort.

"My Lord," Snape chose that particular moment to take his leave. "I have to check in Hogwarts that the filthy ghost you vanished doesn't come back."

"Thorough as always, Severus," Voldemort nodded in approval, "Yes, Hogwarts ghosts can sometimes recover from the ghost killing spell on the castle grounds, their existence being tied to the light magic of the school. Go to your Headmaster duties. For now. The time to conquer Hogwarts is approaching."

The Death Eaters laughed for a long time that evening at the demise of another insignificant opponent, who pretended to lead their enemies. Their joy filled up the many empty chambers of Malfoy Manor with eerie sounds and strange kind of beauty. _The beauty of evil_ , Bella thought as she bid her time in the shadows, clinging to the Time Spanning Quill and Parchment in her robes, noticing that the Parchment colour has turned from green into orange while the quill still showed much more acceptable Slytherin silver and green.

She read and reread the words still visible on the parchment:

 _Love_ , then a blurred sentence because she damaged the parchment snitching it. More words then, saying _I will see you soon. Sirius._ Sirius. Sirius!

Bella was many things, but stupid was not one of them. She understood perfectly that Voldemort did not vanquish the slender ghost of Ariana Dumbledore, yet he let others believe it. Somewhere deep, the long time buried voice of reason whispered that everything had been wrong, the Master made a mistake, the Master was able to make mistakes and that was not how it was supposed to be... Bella told the voice to shut up as she occluded the dissonant tones in her mind, feeling the touch of slender evil fingers on her forearm as she was allowed to kneel for hours at the pleasure of her Lord, her...

It was forbidden.

She could still not admit, not even to herself, what the Dark Lord meant to her.

Yet she couldn't fully erase from her mind the female ghost looking at her with sad eyes and professing love for her cousin Sirius. Her younger cousin who caught her when she fell down from the tree despite being a child himself, only about 8 years old. Her cousin whom she had loved as a brother until he betrayed the family. _He forgave me_ , she thought. _Why?_ _Forgiving is not in the nature of the Blacks._

When the evening drew closer, Bella could not find peace in Malfoy Manor. Voldemort was with Nagini, whispering gently to the snake, not wishing to see anyone.

Recklessness took her and she escaped the Manor, finding herself banging on the front gate of Hogwarts. She stunned inadvertent Minerva McGonagall who opened them and strode directly to Headmaster's office. Severus was luckily not there but the Pensive was on the table, the silvery haze of fresh memories floating on the top. She had to gather all her courage to approach it. Nervous, she plunged into it with a premonition that her life was going to change.

Maniacal laughter filled her head. "Bella, oh Merlin! Such a cow! She has mush for brains. Only her tits remained unspoiled after Azkaban."

And another dagger made of words. "Bella, so loyal, so unintelligent, so lacking in inventiveness. I should have left her to rot in prison if I didn't need a witch to cater to my basic needs..."

And the last one. "You know, Nagini, I can almost forgive Rodolphus for abandoning my cause and running away to Brazil with his new wife. After all, he is married to the greatest hag in the universe. Good pair of teats, though, no complaint there, perfect for relaxation. Nagini, my dear, you're ten times brighter then she is. Come here, love."

Bellatrix saw Voldemort petting his snake lovingly, more gentle then he had ever caressed her. Getting out of the Pensieve she was sick. Her world was turned upside down. Her beautifully dark world populated with even darker certainties was crushed down into simple rotting and decay.

There was only one thing left to do. She took all Voldemort's memories out of the Pensieve and let them out of the window until her shame that no one would ever live to see dissipated in fresh evening air.

She went to the Astronomy Tower to hide, carefully avoiding students, teachers, Filch and his cat. As she walked, handsome grey eyes of her dead cousin Sirius started to illuminate her path, as if she had seen them for the first time in her life. Lifeless eyes of Frank and Alice Longbottom followed suit. After a very long walk, she finally reached the tower. Admiring the view, she took out the Time-Spanning Quill and all of a sudden bright orange Parchment and wrote down:

" _To the young man with red hair, wherever he is._

_Hi,_

_My name is Bellatrix and we have never met, not properly._

_I am old enough to be your aunt, at least._

_They named me after a star but I never was a star. I only burned like one._

_It's time to go now._

_Farewell_."

She carefully rolled the parchment and the quill together laughing at her own insane action.

Pointing aunt Walburga's wand decisively at her own heart she squeaked half-heartedly: "Avada Kedavra!"

She collapsed on the floor of the Astronomy Tower, withered and barren, without noticing young Fawkes the Phoenix, reborn very recently from ashes after the death of his friend and Master Albus Dumbledore. The bird gently plucked the letter and the quill from her arms, carrying it away as though he were an ordinary post owl.

Because help would always be given in Hogwarts, even to those who didn't know they needed it.

Snape found her only the evening after curled up on the floor and barely alive. He discovered her following a trace of disillusionment charm she had used to move around the castle. _She really is a cow_ , Severus thought, one could simply _not_ cast the Unforgivables successfully to oneself. He found it distasteful but he completely shared Voldemort's opinion of Bellatrix's intelligence as rather insufficient.

As if she was vermin, he scooped her up with a few selected intricate movements of his wand, tied her to a broom and sent her flying outside of Hogwarts into the Forbidden Forest, hoping that the hungry Acromantulas would give her a good scare when she woke up. _She might taste good to them_ , he mused. Then he hurried down to the dungeons to hug an empty jar filled with dirty yellow liquid as a madman.

 _It worked, Val,_ he thought, _Bellatrix will never be the same again._ He wondered what kind of memories Bella saw in the Pensieve and what Val did to retrieve them, but most of all he burned to know why Val didn't return to Hogwarts as she agreed she would.

To kill time and to calm his nerves Snape went to check that Ariana was resting safely in her portrait in Hogsmeade.

In the short time of their acquaintance, Snape started to appreciate her dry sense of humour, bursts of wandless magic and shocked attitude towards what she called the new reformed morality of the 1990-s. Her sources were the society scandals and famous wizard and witches love affairs as reported by the the Daily Prophet, the Quibbler and Witch Weekly.

He had a cup of tea with Aberforth in order to gather some courage for his next move. Then, he retrieved the Muggle clothing he purchased a few days after the night he first saw Val playing.

 _Albus, you were wrong_ , he thought, _I am not brave. I am the biggest coward you've ever known._

Snape pulled the black sweatshirt hood tight over greasy lank black hair, and the latter he tied in a pony tail with a plain black string that had seen better days.

Under the dark night sky, Headmaster Snape departed for Muggle London.

xxxx

Bellatrix sneaked back into Malfoy Manor as a ruin, a walking corpse, hoping her absence went unnoticed as she was not supposed to leave. For the first time she had to use Occlumency to hide her state of mind from fellow Death Eaters. Not that any of them was a skilled Legilimens other than the Dark Lord, Severus and herself. The Dark Lord and his snake were luckily gone, on a lookout for Harry Potter, someone said.

Narcissa offered her a cup of tea, but Bellatrix could not stand her sister's perfect cups and cakes in her once perfect home. Just like she despised her weak spoiled son who would never make a decent dark wizard, envying Narcissa for having a child all the same. Aunt Walburga's wand moved fast, wrecking destruction in the salon. Bellatrix muttered excuses to her younger sister and repaired the damage before returning to her own room for the night.

She leaned on the open window and thought she was going to choke on fresh spring air saturated with the scent of flowers. It smelled way too sane for her liking. She wanted to burn Narcissa's garden to the ground until there was nothing left but rot and ashes.

A thin long black dress with sleeves cut open until the elbows looked inviting on a chair next to her bed. The back was cut in, but not too much, as she had scars of a Death Eater life to to hide. She prepared it for the spring ball Narcissa would be hosting soon, hoping to turn her Master's heart away from their collective failures. _Bad thinking, Bella,_ she scorned herself. _No one has ever cared about you. Not Rodolphus, and certainly not the Dark Lord. Rodolphus was after your womb, which proved fruitless, and the Dark Lord will find another pair of breasts when yours lose their firmness._

Bellatrix was a pure-blooded witch with the finest education and the vulgar word _teat_ was simply unacceptable. In her time at school, she frequently overheard boys whispering behind her how she had the best pair of teats in Hogwarts. The offenders would end up in the infirmary in various state of affliction, with rabbit teeth, with mouth grown together or simply unable to speak. Bella had no elder brother to fight for her, nor did she ever need one. She could defend her pure-blooded honour herself.

"Call the things by their name, Bellatrix", she remembered the words of aunt Walburga from long time ago, spoken with despicable coldness in her aristocratic dead voice. "Making up names will not make them any easier for you. Sirius hates all of us, admit that! Don't make excuses for him, don't call him confused!" Walburga finished her little morality talk, as Bellatrix nursed a broken nose and wanted desperately to believe that her baby cousin Sirius cared for her in a way despite their latest fight. Strangely, older Bella got a feeling that aunt Walburga did not follow her own advice because she soon succumbed to dragon-pox when Sirius had been sent to Azkaban, convicted as a Death Eater.

Putting on the lovely black dress for no particular reason, she dared name the truth just to hear how it sounded.

"V… Vol… Voldemort."

There. It was not that difficult.

"Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort!"

Repetition was helpful for the reality to sink in.

"Tom Riddle Junior."

The Muggle name felt delicious in her mouth, pronounced with despising that could kill.

The harsh truth was that for all her prowess in dark magic, the wizard she gifted with her very soul saw her only as a pair of teats, to be played with when he had nothing better to do.

"Bloody bastard!"

As if the word bastard was a kind of password, she overheard a noise of flapping wings and the most beautiful fire coloured bird hatchling she had ever seen dropped an orange parchment in front of her legs, chirping merrily a few times before flying away.

Her hands trembled as she opened the parchment and read.

" _Bellatrix,_

_My name is Charlie Weasley._

_I'm a blood traitor and I'm proud of it._

_They named you after a star but you're no star._

_You are much more like a dragon._

_You don't burn, Bellatrix, you set the world on fire._

_I will be waiting for you._

_Tonight"_

Bellatrix giggled madly , knowing exactly where she wanted to go. Tears filled her eyes. Inopportune footsteps began approaching her room.

"Hello boys! Come and play catch with mama!" she peeped in her high pitched little girl tone towards her unwanted visitors, as a tidal wave of elementary darkness consumed her on the inside.

A party of snatchers was found dead and mutilated the next morning in Bellatrix's bedroom in Malfoy Manor. The sight was horrendous. They lay slaughtered in the pond of blood, undeserving of their fate. Impaled on a broken window shard and hung from the ancient crystal chandelier, stood the most widely known corpse among them all, the dead body of the werewolf Fenrir Greyback.

Narcissa had the room cleaned up by the elves and none of the other residing Death Eaters dared mention what happened. Crazy or not, Bellatrix was still feared almost as much as Voldemort.


	16. The Landslide of Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where love hurts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.
> 
> Best wishes for the coming New Year everyone.

When Val went to the Malfoy Manor, she only intended to steal memories that would give a good shake to the loyalty of Bellatrix Lestrange towards Tom Riddle Junior. What she didn't count on was being exposed to other Voldemort's memories, involving someone else she had come to know since she returned to live in London, a wizard whose name she thought funny when she heard it for the first time, before Severus Snape started to put her on edge by his very existence.

However, lately she thought that while Snape did act like a jerk and definitely didn't have a clue about how to treat people, if one gave it a good try to ignore all that and his Death Eater past, he was loyal, intelligent and hard working. He could have looked better but Val never paid much attention to that as she had always been rather plain of face and kept it purposefully that way for the public to see. Her face was her best cover. Sometimes she'd make it even more inconspicuous with a touch of her dimension shifting gift in order to better melt in the crowd.

As a young girl she cherished not being an exact image of her father, short, with thick ash blond curls (in what he had left of his hair and that was not much), chubby (he would say he was built cylindrically), with dull brown eyes and in reality a ghost above all. She imagined that while her thick curls were her father's, their dark chestnut colour, with eye-catching golden and silver streaks she hid whenever she could, must have come from her mother, just like her blue eyes and her taller, well shaped figure.

Val never got over the fact of not having a mother.

It was an open wound that never healed. She could still remember going to the playground with her father, when she could barely walk and speak, noticing how all other children had mothers. Mothers who would hug them, cuddle them and kiss them while helping them on the swing or on the slide. She only had a father and his embrace lacked warmth she sensed between other children and their parents.

Despite pressing her father for information, he would never provide any. So she sought knowledge and learned how to read when she was only three years old. Hidden in one of the claw-like buttresses of their house in London one day she uncovered a pile of newspapers containing news of a repulsive murder of the wizard Ignotus Peverell, displaying a dreadful image of her father's barely recognisable corpse still twitching, while the healer in charge was filling in the death certificate. It felt as if someone had put a final stamp on her innocence, marking it as gone for good.

She cried and showed the newspapers to her father. He took her on his lap and for the first time he appeared as a ghost in front of her eyes. Val was not afraid but she wanted to know what happened. So her father told her that an evil wizard killed him, believing he could steal his magical gift. But the nature of the gift was that it could not be stolen.

"I stayed as a ghost to take care of you. And I have another promise left to fulfil," he whispered.

Ever since that time Val trusted books for information more than people.

Soon after they moved, or rather  they ran away to Brazil because Dad was s afraid that British magical authorities would not allow a ghost to care for a child. There they acquired a perfectly legal blue dragon hatchling of a local species, a _Brazilian Blue Devil_. Betty was devilishly playful and grew large very fast. She became a trusted friend and they all lived peacefully. Val attended primary and secondary education in the Academy for Witches in São Paulo. The Academy had no houses and she could never understand her father who dressed her in yellow and black all the time and called her his little Hufflepuff. She figured he was a Huffelpuff himself in some long forgotten school, in a faraway place, many years ago.

Her father explained to her about the dimension shifting gift when she was ten, on the occasion when she became so angry that she split her room in two distinct dimensions, locking herself in a different one from her father, so that she wouldn't have to talk to him.

She soon learned how to maintain in real time up to three different versions of their entire house, accessible to different public of her choosing, in the same space and time continuum, with help of the jars of dragon fire placed all around the house. Dragon fire was one of the few rare substances which could help maintain the dimension shift in place, by emitting the necessary energy without exhausting the spell caster.

Father taught her how to store the soul and the life force of a person in one dimension while the body and conscious mind were experiencing another reality. She would apply this power in her healing studies many years later in order to help patients endure difficult treatments safely.

From the books father would not show her, but which she had found and read anyway, she learned that one day, when she would truly love somebody, she would lose her gift as a necessary sacrifice. She was 15 at the time.

"You cannot have it all", her father said discovering that she had read the book. "Yet a child born of any union of yours out of love would inherit the gift until he or she falls in love in turn."

"Did you sacrifice your gift for me?" she asked.

"For you and for your mother," Dad answered smiling, and Val yearned to know the answers she would never have. Whoever her mother was, Dad must have loved her tremendously, so much was at least clear.

By the time she was 16, Val gave up asking her father for anything. She ran away from home with a Muggle football player, leaving behind her uncertainties, her wand, her healing studies and her dimension-shifting abilities. Dad was furious but he could not do much. She soon had a daughter which they had named Norma in the memory of the football player's mother. Her father had been strangely pleased with the choice of the name yet he never told her why. Why, why, why? The questions always lingered not too far from the surface. Val never told him, but she knew all the time that her gift stayed as well despite not being used. And Norma was a witch but nothing more than that.

The football player died in a car crash when Val was 22. She remembered him with tenderness for she loved him dearly, and their passionate affair had no match in all the other couples she had known. Yet what she believed to be love never caused her to suffer or to cry, and in the end she was embarrassed at how easy she came to terms with Paulo's death. Her life was dedicated to Norma and to the career of the healer to which she returned, excelling in both areas. Yet in her dreams the same old questions about her true identity kept torturing her mind.

In that same year on a summer day Dad disappeared with their entire apothecary shop and Betty. Val called the Auror department but no one really bothered to investigate the disappearance of an old ghost and his pet dragon.

When she was mad with worry, she looked up Dad's old contacts in London, used an international Floo network to travel there with Norma and met one of his friends, Aberforth Dumbledore, in the Leaky Cauldron where they rented a room. Aberforth ensured her that her Dad was fine but, obviously, he swore his old friend into secrecy about whatever he had been doing in London, and Dumbledore was too honourable to break his oath. Val's secret hopes of getting answers to her life long questions were mercilessly crushed when she realised Aberforth had no idea whatsoever about who her mother was.

Was she still alive? Or did she die in birth as Val frequently imagined must have happened, for what other reason could lead any witch to willingly abandon her child? Norma was Val's life and she never regretted her pregnancy at too young age, even if she did it initially only to spite her father.

Aberforth contacted Dad and he soon showed up in the Leaky Cauldron with a black haired teenager in tow, brown-eyed, a strange black mark tattooed on his arm. That was the first time in her life that Val heard the name Black. Regulus turned out to be a great friend and acted like a much needed older brother to Norma. He would take her biking and he taught her how to swim. When they returned to Brazil, Regulus never wanted to talk about his life in Europe, or to return there. It was too painful and Val knew better then to ask.

Her strained relationship with her father improved with time and soon they started keeping the apothecary shop at day and a jazz bar for Muggles and wizarding population alike at night. Val remembered her piano lessons from childhood and enjoyed accompanying her father who played the trumpet. Dad would sometimes look at her with sadness greater than the world after they would receive a particularly strong applause from the crowd. Occasionally she would go out with someone, well aware that many people found her attractive for her outgoing character and good figure, but no one ever began to fill the emptiness of her hert. Paulo was the closest to what she wanted and he had died a long time ago. She turned to her music, which was a much more reliable companion. Life was easy and calm and above all passing quickly. All she was looking forward to was an uneventful death.

Until many years later her father came to face her on a bright winter day.

"We have to go back," he said. "You have to come with me this time. I will not be able to do it by myself. Reg will take care of Norma. Betty will fly us there together with the house."

"What are we going to do… there?" Val asked, not convinced.

"We have to save Reg's brother, Sirius Black. It's the last part of the promise I intend to keep."

Her father started packing enthusiastically, not even waiting for Val's answer. She shrugged and decided there was no use to complain. Norma was a young woman by that time, in no need for baby sitting and mother's care. Val kissed Norma and Regulus goodbye and before she knew it, they were flying over the ocean, with the blue of its waters so distant and so cold. She wondered if over there, in London, the city where she had been born, the answers she still wanted had been waiting for her all the time.

This was more than a year and a half ago and the only thing she had gained was more riddles than ever before, and her consciousness heavily polluted by images of Voldemort despising Bellatrix Lestrange or, much worse, torturing young Severus Snape and enjoying turning him into a monster. The Potions Master, or rather the Poisons Master of the Dark Lord.

A particularly strong memory was that of young Snape prostrated in front of Voldemort begging for a life of a woman.

Followed by Voldemort's contagious joy when he personally killed that woman, among other reasons because Snape begged him not to.

 _What has happened to you, Severus?_ she thought. _How were you able to do this to yourself at all?_

Before her quest to access Voldemort's memories, Val lived in comfortable certainty, knowing that Severus, just like Bellatrix, could feel the existence of multiple dimensions because his soul was harmed by the crimes he committed out of greed, immaturity, vindictiveness, or simply the desire to harm others. All people were young once and all people made mistakes. Val knew that better than most.

Her father explained to her this could happen when she was learning about her gift.

Her father was plain wrong.

Severus's ability to sense the dimension shift had nothing to do with any crimes he may have committed, and Val stopped believing that the list of his real crimes was very long and impressive, since the shocking moment when Voldemort's blunt thoughts showed Val the truth she had never expected to see.

Severus Occluded his thoughts from Voldemort so decisively and so completely that he involuntarily split his soul, with a surgical precision a healer would use to cut out the cancerous growth in a body. There was Snape on one hand, nasty, sharp of mind and tongue, and a meticulously crafted but otherwise completely false Death Eater persona who appeared to desire power.

Val never met anybody who pushed standard Occlumency to such extremes, and that with a single-minded intention to bring Tom Riddle down, in order to have his revenge for the woman he had lost, or maybe to compensate for the conceited stupidity of his youth. Whatever Snape's precise reasons were, they were intensively private and personal, and only accidentally coincided with the greater good, Val surmised.

But the strictness of the method and the clinical perfection of its execution greatly transcended any selfish reason he may have had to start with. For, in order to arrive at the perfect result of effectively deceiving Voldemort, without using dark magic and a murder of another human being as a means to achieve it, Severus purposefully sacrificed a piece of his own immortal soul.

Whether he knew about it or not.

And that was the most selfless thing that anyone could have done.

The self-inflicted harm of that magnitude must have caused unimaginable amount of emotional suffering. Val had to suppress the urge to run after Severus and force feed him Felix Felicis or a similar fast mood-boosting solution.

The dimension shifting gift came with secondary effect that she could get a brief taste of another person's mind. In the moment when the dimensions effectively separated or joined, and Val was taking someone over the barrier, even the best kept secrets of that person would be visible to her in a fleeting moment.

Trembling with emotion at the memory of Snape's dead black eyes, Val felt a pang of guilt as she recalled thinking of him as a greasy ugly git, a Death Eater, just like the man who killed her father, until she pulled him into her favourite self-designed reality of vast green fields extending to reach the distant horizon.

It was meant to mock him, to confuse him and make him feel uneasy about something he would probably consider a dangerous Legilimency skill. But then his features relaxed and he looked into her eyes and _thanked_ her.

She kept them both there without using any external aid to maintain the shift in place as she should have done, because she wanted to savour for as long as possible a direct contact with the cold blooded landscape of his mind, fascinated by the bareness and the pain she had found there, until she nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

That was the day when the world became eventful and Val irrevocably changed.

Whether she was aware of it or not.

Bellatrix on the other hand, as Val could tell, severely destabilized her soul by her crimes without reaching the point of splitting it fully. Val didn't even want to think about the damage Voldemort did to his soul, divided in 7 pieces using a well-aimed murder, as a trigger to store a part of his soul inside a precious object.

Horcruxes, that was what Dumbledore sent Harry Potter after.

Val was curious to meet Harry if only to see who was right about the boy's character, Albus who admired him, or Severus who had a very bad opinion about the boy, but paradoxically still did all he could do to help him. And they were both so pathetic trying to hide the details of Harry's mission from Ariana and her.

But there was no way they could have kept Horcruxes a secret from the woman whose father's murder was the means by which Voldemort's first Horcrux had been made - the Slytherin locket that nearly also cost the life of Regulus Black, if Betty had not set an entire lake of some morbid creatures timely on fire.

To think of how her father actually died tortured, always gave Val creeps and an insatiable thirst for revenge. She permitted herself to criticise and even hate her father at occasions, mostly when the topic of her mother would come between them as a rock of solid mistrust. She could do that, but no one else was allowed to harm him, or tarnish his memory. So despite the ever changing odds that Harry Potter could actually defeat Voldemort, Val was going to do everything in her power to make sure that Tom Riddle's list of new kills was kept as short as possible, for as long as she drew breath. And she took a well learned leaf in secrecy from her fathers' book in that; no one but her was going to know exactly how far her actions reached

For all their differences, Voldemort, Bellatrix and Severus shared in common the rare ability to notice that the dimensions were shifted, without knowing exactly what they were experiencing. This also meant that if any of them aimed to kill a soul Val wanted to protect in another reality, they might be able to do it by targeting the body. There was no way to predict the outcome of their actions, hanging in the space between all dimensions, reserved for the irreparably crippled beings of the universe.

Well, Severus would never do it, she was certain of it now. Bellatrix would, Val had no doubt, but with her current mental state Val hoped she would be way less efficient, at least.

This left Voldemort, the most dangerous of all, on the day when the Final Battle was joined in Hogwarts full of young students. The only hope was that he would to be too busy trying to kill Harry Potter first, before trying to kill anyone else, and that he would leave the student problem to his minions.

As she absent-mindedly mopped the pub floor the Muggle way before the evening opening hours, Val crossed her fingers that Harry Potter would kill Tom Riddle first and that the plan of the reformed Order to protect Hogwarts would work. The dice rolled and there was no time for a backup plan.

After depositing the memories stolen from Voldemort in the Pensieve for Bellatrix's usage, she headed straight home, ignoring the agreement with Severus to meet him in Hogwarts when she accomplished her task. Housework was like a driftwood grabbed by a woman drowning to stay afloat, it helped her keep her mind away from a series of annoying facts.

Val could accept Snape even when she believed him to be a vulgar, somewhat reformed Death Eater with a penchant for arbitrary cruelty towards others. In the absence of a better description, she thought he was fun.

But now she was afraid she would instantly retch if she saw Severus again so fast, or worse, that she would passionately kiss him.

And kissing him might just cost her the gift, desperately needed to save as many lives as possible in the ongoing war.

Val lingered in the pub reality, unable to take care of her hospital, or of the shop, ignoring her father who served a few healing Death Eaters and other customers. That night she played alone and the crowd was silent as a grave during her performance, until she finished, drained, exhausted, and received the warmest and the longest applause ever, mixed with cheers and whistles from all sides.

Sinking on a bar chair, she noticed Charlie Weasley seated next to her.

"Hello there. Is there anything wrong with Betty?" she had to ask.

"No. I was just visiting London and I have a kind of... er... I guess you could call it a date here. Do you mind?"

"No. I'm sure Brian will serve you something nice," she winked at the old barman she collected as a tramp in the park on the night when they returned to London, and who had become a faithful employee.

Val busied herself behind the bar with Brian, not quite prepared as to who Charlie would meet, when a pale shadow of a once terrible woman in a gorgeous, dark coloured summer dress walked into the pub and approached the young man. A closer look revealed that the Bellatrix's elegant dress was sprinkled with fresh blood as if she had been a priestess in the service of a particularly cruel deity, freshly descended among the mortals from her sinister temple.

But it was even more shocking when two strong arms touched Val's shoulders from behind. She tried hard to focus on her shoes before she slowly relaxed, feeling all her dimensions fall in place, leaning towards a source of warm living breath way too close to her neck.

She wondered how far a dimension shifter had to go in expressing feelings to lose the gift. Her father never told her and the book was not very specific.

"I didn't want to startle you," Severus said mockingly, manifestly thrilled that he managed to do just that. "But I cannot enter in the place where you are without your permission."

Val appreciated that he made an effort to dress up as a Muggle, saving her some work and energy stored in the house for reality splitting purposes. She noticed he looked quaintly at the tight red T-shirt she was wearing, proudly exhibiting a title "Bad Excuses" in capital letters. Severus usually appeared to be shocked with her particular taste in Muggle clothing, just like her father always was.

And Val wanted to unpin her hair and show herself to him as she truly was, no reality tweaks, nothing, just the two of them, together, as they were, no more and no less. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, drag him behind the stage and see how pale his skin truly was, exploring every inch of it at her leisure. The brief touch of his arms on her shoulders stirred up her thoughts in all wrong ways and she felt like a cauldron about to explode.

"You didn't come. Change of plans I guess," Severus continued indifferently and sat at the bar.

Grateful for a new topic of conversation which wouldn't include explaining her body's treacherous reactions, Val pointed at Bellatrix and winked.

"I see. Checking on your rate of success, are you?" Severus inquired. "Did our little plan work for dear Bellatrix?"

"Hard to tell," Val muttered.

"I'd say that Bellatrix having a drink with a blood traitor definitely counts as a change of heart," said Severus. "We should owl a picture to the Prophet. The scandal would be quite delicious."

They remained busy with small talk, occasionally glancing at the strange couple next to them. Val wondered how much of the bar surroundings Bella could recognise in her new even more unstable state of mind, but she stopped worrying soon enough, realising that the couple seemed to ignore everything around them, entirely lost in their conversation and drinks.

"Severus, the battle is soon coming to Hogwarts, isn't it?"

"Maybe. We have to keep working on defences at night with Aberforth and Ariana. The ghosts will help, they seem to listen to your father. No one else should know about it if we want to succeed. I will have Peeves slip sleeping potion into food of my fellow Death Eater teachers, the Carrows. A personal recipe of mine. The secondary effects are... interesting..." his lips narrowed in happy maliciousness. "So we should be able to work in peace."

Val figured that the potion Severus brewed for the Carrows would cause them a worse hangover than drinking a barrel of petroleum.

"Aberforth will only relay a message to all sympathizers of the Order when and if the battle really starts, for them to join us. Well, us is a figure of speech. Not me, obviously. I will join the Dark Lord, " he said, his voice empty.

He fixated Val with an expressionless look of his pitch black eyes as if he was expecting something from her.

"Is Ariana alright?" Val forced herself to ask in all innocence, unwilling to even consider what Severus should exactly do in the final battle and unable to give him what he may have sought, for it could doom them all.

"She's playing Sleeping Beauty in her portrait, I've just checked," Snape's empty face relaxed and turned into a most uncharacteristic easy going friendly smile at the mention of Ariana, which burned Val's soul like a laser beam.

Hogwarts was going to be safe and Val was going to keep her gift. In an attack of paranoia of losing her unique ability just when it was needed the most, Val completely forgot the unique condition that her book clearly did mention.

If Val was truly going to sacrifice her gift, Severus would have to love her back.

The book spoke of manifest and unambiguous declaration of true love in word and deed, which had to be corresponded in equal measure by a person she loved.

Val ruffled Severus' hair, profoundly enjoying his outraged puff which erased the awfully normal smile from his face.

And in a need to drown her passion in something, she simply went to the stage and played.

xxxxxxxxxx

Charlie couldn't take his eyes of Bella. She didn't look well at all. She looked old, ugly, worn, defeated. Yet there was a tiny flame from within illuminating her face, which was not there when they met for the first time, something new and almost genuine, something beyond all the masks people wore in life for the sake of others.

"This isn't a hospital, is it?" she whispered.

"Nope," admitted Charlie because that moment in his life required nothing less than the absolute truth.

"And I'm not drinking a potion, am I?"

"Muggle whisky, actually. Same as the last time. Do you mind?"

"Nope," she smiled. "Could we... er... dance again?" she said after a long time.

Charlie took her hand and they started moving slowly around the podium keeping to the shadows, oblivious to any watching eyes. The sturdy young man held his ground, not letting his youth and relative inexperience show, guiding on the dance floor the first woman who made his heart skip a bit, with a self-assurance he did not feel. _She could kill me_ , he thought, _she might do it yet_ , wondering whose blood he felt on her dress.

Instead, when they drifted to one of the corners, Bella gave Charlie a brief peck on his cheek and he reacted instinctively by kissing her hair, surprised by her response of melting in his arms, grateful he had enough physical strength to support her, a mere by-product of his daily work with magical creatures, never required in his private life until that moment.

A door to where Betty used to live was right behind them, so Charlie manoeuvred them there and pressed the knob.

It was open and empty. The straw and sand that the dragon would sleep on was the only thing still there.

She seemed to understand what he wanted and she sank backwards in the dirt, dragging him down with her.

Charlie lifted her dress and grabbed her hips, burying his head between her legs, thinking that if he got killed at that moment it would be more than worth it.

When she was left trembling in his arms, he got out and looked at her face, dazed and completely changed.

"Well," she said, "my turn to _teach_ you."

She pushed him away as if he was a wooden puppet and towered above him.

"Don't be afraid," she said, before leaning in to kiss him with a mischievous grin.

xxxxxxxxx

 _I cannot believe we did this,_ Charlie thought, helping her to straighten her dress. They went back to the door and to the outside world, where they slowly waltzed back to the bar, entangled as only new lovers could be.

When they finished another drink, Charlie felt he owed her the truth even if it was not a pleasant one.

"I cannot do this, you know. I still know who you are and what you did. I'm sorry," he said.

"It's alright. I understand. I just wanted some company for tonight. That's all," she said carelessly, savouring the moment, forgetting all about the long, cold fingers of her Master that meant more than her life to her only a day ago. "If I was younger... would you... er..."

"It's not that. It is all you did, the murders, the torture. I just can't. It would kill me in a long run, knowing I could love you, despite everything you did."

"You're lying," Bellatrix accused him, sounding as if she wished he would convince her of the opposite.

"Believe me, I could. I just couldn't live with myself if I did. I'm truly sorry," finished Charlie with utmost sincerity.

"That is... er... more than I could ever hope for. That you could love me. Even if you never will," Bellatrix said softly and kissed his cheek.

Slowly, she rose and waddled to the door, pausing to look back one last time. She stepped out leaving the door wide open. Behind her she could hear the beginning of a slow motion trumpet solo performance, painfully climbing higher and higher. A heart-wrenching metallic tune pervaded everything and the very air became a sea of sound.

Bellatrix walked away, feeling the solid ground under her feet, lazy and unwilling to use any magical way to depart. She lay down on a bench were Brian used to sleep and just listened to the music, flooding the deserted street at night.

For the first time in a very long while Bellatrix felt free.


	17. Soul Storing Cubes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the angels sing and Phineas Nigellus is beyond any doubt a Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.
> 
> Thank you to anyone who might be still reading.

The loss of Time Spanning Quill and Parchment was slowly driving Sirius into a deep incurable depression, more terrible than he had ever suffered from before.

The only way to release tension was to spend some time every night as Padfoot, hunting Doxies in an old, infested closet, regretting that he could not run in the streets of London because Phineas Nigellus categorically refused to let him out "for his own safety". So Padfoot exercised his dog and his human body in the attic the best he could, and he progressively engaged in a diet of starvation, necessary to slip through the doors and bars of Azkaban.

The amount of people mothering him had grown exponentially since he ended in the past from zero to two. Sirius would never admit it, but in the short few months he spent with Phineas Nigellus in forced isolation, hiding from Arcturus, his wife, their acquaintances and Kreacher, he acquired a grudging respect for the old man.

In some aspects Phineas Nigellus was easy going and charming, curious about everything, just like uncle Alphard and Sirius, and then he would turn back to his evil, calculating and severe personality. Sirius could not tell which character was real, so he just stopped trying to figure it out. Maybe they both were.

The time for try-outs had finally come and despite the strong misgivings about the entire motorcycle project Sirius was welcoming the change at the end of another long period of what he considered inaction, if not straightforward prison time. His usual lot in life.

"How do I fly it?" he asked. "It's about time that you instruct me."

"As you already know the handlebars are modelled to react only to the unique signature of your hands or mine. They will glow red and gold for you and green and silver for me when the contact is established. Not very creative, I know, but I didn't have enough time to think of a more original design. You kick off and while you add speed, you grip them hard and focus on the desired place and time in your mind. As close to the moment when you would explode from too high speed, you empty your mind completely and think of flying. Think that you spurted wings and you are soaring over the Earth. Then stop thinking. And take off."

"What if your theory doesn't work?" asked Sirius, not convinced at all.

"You will discover that I am most proficient in treating magical burns."

Phineas Nigellus didn't lie. The try-outs went on and Sirius was burnt and treated for it all over his body. The pain had become an old trusted friend numbing the blur of emotion, starvation and longing to see Harry and help him as he should have done in the first place.

Somehow he managed to forget completely about Ariana by convincing himself again that love was but a secondary thing compared to the great fight for the Light. Yet on occasions, a guilty weak feeling crept all over him imagining tresses of golden orange hair passing by in the luminous airy corridors of Grimmauld Place 12, in a time that never existed. All the corners of his house were and had always been black.

He knew he was doing something wrong but he couldn't pinpoint what, musing over every detail of every unsuccessful try, feeling guilty for being too thick to make the machine work. They experimented at night on the roof, charming the light and sound effects of the motorbike to look like summer rain with the briefest touch of lightning in the distance to an inexperienced viewer.

They laughed at the Muggle weather forecast, attempting a profound analysis of a micro-climate of humidity surge in the centre of London. They accidentally intercepted it from their Muggle neighbours, when the charm of making the Black house roof and attic soundproof went very wrong, and instead they could listen to all conversations and TV programmes from the surrounding houses for several hours. They went on laughing like boys, almost to the point of tears, before Phineas managed to get all serious about it and arrange the charm properly.

The days passed quietly, but with every failure the tension grew more palpable. They lived in the calm before the storm until a night came when Sirius hit the bottom of the depression and lost his temper.

"I can't do this!" he raged. "I'm useless. I could never do anything right. I couldn't protect my friends. I was not there for my godson. I was too dumb to see who Ariana really was before it was too late…"

He ran past Phineas Nigellus, jumped on the motorcycle and rode it fiercely all the way up through the chimney, enlarged for that purpose by magic. Sirius flew far up into the night sky, farther than he ever dared go before. His favourite constellation, Lyra, had risen, to his surprise. Normally it should not have been seen above London at that time of the year. _Good_ , he thought, _tonight is as good time as any._

Increasing the speed he thought of Harry. How he should be with him. How he should have never met Ariana or participated in the twisted time-travelling experiment of his great-great-grandfather of all people.

He increased the speed. Two minutes to the breaking point. The handlebars glowed in brilliant red and gold.

_Percival Dumbledore. The night before his death._

_Percival Dumbledore. The night before his death._

_Percival Dumbledore. The night before his death._

_Percival Dumbledore. The night before his death._

One minute to breaking point. _You will not be able to fix me this time_ , _great-great-grandfather_ , he thought but he didn't relent. Mindlessly, he increased the speed beyond any he used in previous try-outs, beyond any he used in his life. He raised his speed beyond reason itself. The motorcycle spun in the sky as a whirlwind of metal, human and animal part, which could not be distinguished any longer.

Sirius laughed madly and the entire motorcycle caught fire.

He laughed the way he did when he was first taken to Azkaban, crazed and confined, gripping the handlebars until they were covered in fresh blood. They started shining more than ever, in rich red and opulent gold, like precious gems no wizard eye had ever seen.

In the dazzling flash of bright, shimmering light, Sirius was gone.

Phineas Nigellus Black stood alone on the roof top, feeling the illusion of the warm summer rain moisturise his battered face, and smiled.

xxxxxxxx

A shabby man with charred hands was labouring in the thicket of thistles and thorns above the beach, trying to hide a motorcycle with what mother-nature provided rather than with magic. It would be safer in case he encountered any unexpected difficulties on his journey. The handlebars were now dull black in colour and he could barely move his burnt hands and lower arms. Apart from that, he was well.

It was already dusk. A black dog waited for the nightfall before descending the steep slope towards the beach. Down, he gazed into the mist knowing what he could not see, but what was nevertheless there.

Azkaban.

He never thought he would willingly go back. The waves were almost friendly as they carried him to the high seas. The smell of death and decay was his guide, where once before the scent of fresh herbs from the firmness of the land he wanted to reach helped him find his way back to the living. He was stronger now and progressed faster, until he saw it again.

The blackness of Azkaban. Fortress not guarded primarily by doors, or walls. Protected by terror alone.

The dog shivered and trotted next to the low irregularly built wall of the enclosure, following a faint glow from the small wooden heirloom Phineas Nigellus inherited from Percival Dumbledore, and entrusted to Sirius to help him on his quest. Many a night Sirius would observe his great-great-grandfather take comfort from the small object, crafted of the entangled thin wooden threads, which curved and shaped star-like patterns on its surface. It accompanied Phineas in his studies and writing as a most unusual candle with a life of its own. Sirius questioned his better judgement for having it accepted in the first place, because he had to admit he didn't know exactly what the object did, and the magic it possessed was unmistakable. But faced with the horror of the place he returned to, he was glad to hold a small warm cube in his hands. It somehow behaved friendly, as if Sirius was not alone and in mortal peril.

When the light from the inside faded, faced with the darkness of Azkaban, the cube became warmer, almost like a hand of another human being. The dog scurried after a group of Dementors straight into the high security wing, where the number of permanently stationed soul-devouring beings could be four times bigger than in the rest of the prison. He had no idea how or where to find Percival Dumbledore, or how to check if he indeed arrived in the correct time.

Sirius spent 12 years of his life in that wing. Moved by a strange urge, he had to see his old cell. He could not go there directly as he was dodging the Dementors. They could not feel him in Animagus form but they could still hurt him if he accidentally bumped into them. Dog or not, Sirius felt his happiness sucked away as he crawled forward under the dreadful weight of all his guilt, real and imagined. The death of James and Lily, his failure to protect Harry. A vision of Ariana laying in transparent white robes in the middle of the perfect green meadow extending far to the horizon; her impossibly long legs connected to a barrier Sirius could not recognise. There were marks visible on her stomach, some kind of stretched skin Sirius could not place, and she surely didn't have it before. The image emanated sadness and Sirius was tempted to bang his head to the wall or just lay down and cry, endlessly.

The dog felt the warmth of the cube attached to his collar and moved on. The little wooden container holding memories of happier times worked as a safeguard from desperate thoughts, just like Phineas Nigellus promised it would.

Sirius soon found that his old cell was not empty.

In it sat an ancient, peacefully looking wizard with bright eyes, wearing once colourful robes reduced to tatters. His knee length hair resembled that of his daughter and had not yet turned fully from auburn to grey despite that he must have been over a hundred years old, no matter what age he chose to tell the world. He seemed to be asleep with his eyes wide open, staring at the door. The dog squeezed himself through the bars and nuzzled the man's face before transforming into a thin human shadow.

As if he was awaiting a late night visitor, Percival Dumbledore startled, grabbed Sirius's hand and whispered: "Son… My son…"

Sirius tried to pull his arm back in embarrassment, but Percival wouldn't let it go. He began speaking loud and clear, in a visionary trance, as if every word he was saying had a special importance.

" _They say that the Veil of Death is made from the liquid thoughts of angels. Not just any angels, the guardian angels who failed to protect their charges. The protectors of orphans and lost children. It's made of their thoughts turned dense, like the frozen tears of regret, when they wished and wished to have done more for those they had to keep safe, but who had died instead…"_

 _"It is said that if a soul persecuted by great injustice falls into the Veil, pure as a soul of a child, yet accepting to endure the undeserved pain, the angels may smile again. Then their thoughts will touch and gently wrap such soul, and carry it softly to the place where it belongs, where it should have been all along. They say that the angels speak to such souls. They tell stories of courage, of love and of regret. And maybe, just maybe, if the soul listens, it might yet find happiness or at least a measure of peace. For the thoughts of angels stay with us wherever we go. It is just that we cannot see them._ "

Sirius couldn't make sense out of the speech, it sounded like gibberish, or like a particularly vivid dream. He nevertheless did his best to commit it to memory, true to his lately adopted life philosophy not to discard the unusual as unreal.

He made a mental note to check what the term "angels" meant in Black family books on dark magic. The eyes of the older man brightened when he finished speaking, and revealed the usual sparkling blue eyes of the Dumbledores, with their colour boosted to the very extreme of blueness imaginable.

"I hope for your sake that you can remember what I just said word by word since I have no idea what it was. Except that most probably it was intended for you. Tweak. Twit. Tweet. Tw..."

"Wait, are you saying that I should use the Veil then to travel back to my time?" Sirius asked, impatient, proud to have made a first successfully aimed long period time travel in the history of magic. He only wished to move on and he was unsure what information he needed from Percival to do just that. One thing was at least certain, Ariana's father had just had some kind of hallucination about the Veil of Death.

"The real question is rather how the Veil used you. Don't try to control it. It has a power far above ours and a mind of its own. It's one of the most interesting artifacts I had the honour to examine when I was still in business. I have just replayed to you from my memory the vision I had when Grindelwald generously offered me a quite remarkable Muggle painting of Nativity, a masterpiece of its kind, following the death of its previous owner. I don't think that young Gellert ever found out about its properties or he would not be so eager to get rid of it…" concluded Percival, lucid as if he didn't spend the past year almost exclusively in the company of the Dementors.

"And I have a suspicion that I can only replay my vision to a person that the Veil itself deems worthy… You know what it does by now, I reckon. But you haven't come here using it, young… Black. I don't know your first name but I regret to say that your family history is written all over your face."

"My name is Sirius. I worked with Phineas Nigellus on a time travel experiment. He claims you were his best friend."

"But why come here to see a dying man? Ah, you brought my legacy back to me!" exclaimed Percival noticing a small wooden cube on a rope tied around Sirius's neck. "May I see it? The Soul Storing Cube does not only store memories and writings but it provides guidance and comforts the soul. Two such artifacts will greatly ease my imminent passing."

"Two?" Sirius asked, flabbergasted.

Percival took another similar cube from his underpants and lay down holding both of them close to his heart, looking as relaxed as if he was preparing to sun-bathe and not to die.

Sirius cursed Phineas for providing him with only half information about important things as usual. "Wait, that's the same cube which I brought back here. The past and the future version of it co-exist in the same time. Shouldn't one of them disappear? And why did you bequeath your Soul Storing Cube to my great-great-grandfather?"

"If anybody could have it brought back here before I died it was him!" exclaimed Percival, immensely pleased. "Phineas Nigellus is indeed a dear friend of mine. This cube will help him finish his own life's work. He's working on a project he probably didn't tell you about. He never tells anybody. It's a study on an important matter in wizarding history. But the cube you brought back needs something more to develop all its magical properties and unravel the mystery of the phenomenon he is studying."

"What's the final ingredient?" Sirius wondered.

"My last breath. It won't be long before I draw it. It will imbue the object with a life force of its own."

"Why didn't you breathe it in the first Cube when you created it?" asked Sirius inconsiderately, as if discussing someone's upcoming death was the most trivial of conversations.

"The object is fragile. I need two warm hands to secure it for me at the moment when I will pass away. Your hands. Otherwise I will drop it and break it in pieces."

Noting the younger wizard's growing unease, Percival continued, "It's alright, Sirius, I sense that you want to ask more questions. Go ahead. I don't have much time."

"It's not really questions, Sir, there's something I ought to tell you. I… I… I don't know how to begin. I worked for a secret organisation ran by your son Albus, aiming to destroy the Dark Lord of our time. I ended up in the past and I met your daughter. I fell in love with her and then I... I lost her! But I'm trying to find her again, I swear... To make this short, I... I was wondering if you would deem me worthy of her hand and if you could tell me anything that could help me find her again. She… she… returned to the time I originally came from. Passing through the Veil of Death," Sirius felt like the biggest coward in the world as he expected a reaction from the man he regarded as his father-in-law, whether he gave him his blessing or not.

"There is only one important thing I have to tell you about Ariana if you promise me first that whatever you may hear from me will not change your feelings for her," said Percival sternly. "She has had enough misery already."

"You are a Legilimens, I trust", Sirius put his face on the level with Percival and looked him straight in the eyes, baring his soul. "Take a look for yourself."

"Such violent measures will not be necessary. I am also a bit of a Seer, the only one in my family. It saddens me greatly to tell you that I sense that you may never see Ariana alive again."

The blunt statement caused Sirius to bury his head between his hands, before hitting the wall hard with his burned fists until the point that they started bleeding again.

"Don't be harsh on yourself, Sirius Orion Black." said Percival, amused by the younger man's reaction. "I also sense that what you have already given her was priceless. Have courage! The saying goes that where there is a will, there is a way. You just have to keep going."

"Is that what you wanted to tell me?" asked Sirius, feeling like he was missing an important point.

"No, Sirius. What I have to tell you is something completely different. Officially, I went after the three Muggles who dishonoured Ariana and killed them. In truth, little dunderheads were so happy with what they did the first time that they searched for Ariana again when she was barely healed. They kidnapped her from my house which was not properly warded, because, you know, I am something of a Muggle lover and I have a tendency to trust people."

"They took her to an old shed where the initial attack took place. You have to see that Ariana has always been as unpredictable in use of magic as I and my son Albus, while Aberforth was always much more calm and disciplined. People thought of him as less talented but in reality he just had more control."

"When the boys disrobed her, Ariana was so ashamed that her magic burst. She Apparated in the air above the shed, incinerated it and thus burned the Muggles alive. She returned home hurt, with ashes falling of her half burned robes, most of her hair gone. I modified her memories and took them so that I could declare them at the Wizengamot trial convincingly as my own."

"I have Seen that Ariana's destiny was far in the future."

"The Muggles were just a setback, but Azkaban could kill her. I couldn't let it happen. Not to her, not to any of my children," Percival ended his long monologue, looking for a hint of disapproval in Sirius'e eys.

Seemingly unable to find anything wrong there, Percival sighed, relieved. And then he must have decided it was time to tell him the rest. "I am ill, Sirius. I mean, I was ill before Azkaban."

The words rolled in darkness of the cell, their echo rebounding from the walls and Sirius knew he was telling the truth. There was no deceit in Percival, not of the kind one could always sense in Phineas Nigellus Black.

"I contracted a rare disease some years ago in Egypt and I had plenty of time to prepare myself to leave this world. This way my dying has a purpose. I have Seen that my son Albus will follow a similar path. I only wish he was happier in choosing an object of his affections before that comes to pass..." Percival got lost in an unfinished thought.

As if he woke up from a painful memory, Percival focused on Sirius again and told him his last bidding, accompanied with a gaze that could move mountain. "Take good care of my daughter if you find her again, will you?"

Percival looked like he would hunt down from his grave just about anyone who would dare harm Ariana.

"I saved her from Grindelwald, at least," Sirius muttered.

Percival's face suddenly grew very dark, but he didn't say a word.

The pale grey morning crept under the door when Percival clutched the wooden cubes closer to his chest and started breathing irregularly. Sirius felt the presence of Dementors and heard the footsteps of the guards. He transformed into a dog and put a paw on each of the cubes, over the older man's hands, suppressing an urge to weep.

The cubes shone with blinding golden light when Percival Dumbledore stopped breathing.

Two guards opened the door and recoiled immediately at the sight of a large black dog snarling and showing his teeth. The animal jumped over the guards toppling them over. Then he ran fast as the wind, ducked under the gathered Dementors and plunged into the sea from the highest tower of the maximum security wing. The water was chilly and it almost stopped his blood from running. He clutched the cube which had been laying on the left side of Percival's chest right above his heart, and he left the other one with his body to follow its marked trajectory to Phineas Nigellus in the future.

He kept himself afloat while swimming with conflicting thoughts about almost everything Percival had said, except the part where Ariana killed her attackers. On _that_ his views were crystal clear. Sirius couldn't care less about what she did and he only regretted not having a chance to tear them personally to pieces with his bare hands or paws.

The motorcycle was where he left it. A strange symbolism took him and he plucked one of the blue flowering thistles before taking off. It reminded him of the ones growing on the beach next to the small stone house above the sea where he had met the love of his life.

Getting back to Grimmauld Place 12 was a piece of cake. Sirius collapsed as soon as he gripped the handlebars and simply woke up in the familiar attic with the pair of familiar blind eyes and skilled wrinkled hands fussing over his fresh burns and injuries.

"Your hands will be scarred forever, Sirius," Phineas ranted, "there is nothing I can do about them.  I have to thank you for bringing me back a complete Memory Cube in such condition!"

"He called it a Soul Storing-Cube... There was another one… You should have it now again... I took this one because it shone above his heart… Gold, I think. But I can't be sure," Sirius mumbled, only half conscious. With the adrenaline from the mission gone, the pain in his hands and limbs became excruciating. It could not compare to any curse or non-magical injury he had experienced before.

"Is that so? Perhaps you should take it with you to the future then. I could charm it for you to contain the memories of your life here as a kind of photo album," Phineas looked at Sirius hopefully, with the expression of the bird of prey that Sirius failed to notice when he just nodded in agreement and passed away to dreamless sleep.

Phineas Nigellus spent the night awake, chanting in unknown language and charming the two Soul-Storing-Cubes they now possessed.

In the morning he was ready.

When Sirius got up, Phineas Nigellus handed him the Cube and said: "Arcturus has found out about you and my experiment while you were gone. You should go now while you still can."

"But, great-great-grandfather, if he did, he will fight you! I have to stay and help. I guess that Malfoy betrayed us?"

Sirius knew that Arcturus would bring the entire Black and Malfoy family to fight the old wizard, just to lay his hands on the time travelling machine, even for the remotest possibility of having one.

"No. You are leaving right now!" the expression on the blind man's face was determined. "I lived long enough and my descendants are shaped by my own actions."

Sirius understood his words correctly, as an understatement meaning that Arcturus hated his grandfather so much that he was going to kill him personally. He also recognised that he would never convince the old man to change his mind willingly when he blurted, hopelessly, what had to be said while there was still time:

"Great-great-grandfather. I will stay. I am the failure. And you are the one who worked for this. You wanted to see the stars and better times in the future, not me. You should go in my place."

"Spoken like a true Gryffindor!" said Phineas, full of strange pride. "I have no intention of taking you on your offer, but I will let you hold the fortress for me while I go for a short ride, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," said Sirius with a naughty grin, anticipating a good fight.

The Muggle neighbours swore to the police the next day that there was green fire in the sky above numbers 11 and 13 Grimmauld Place, but the authorities in charge classified the declarations as drunken ramblings. An entire team of Ministry of Magic Obliviators was dispatched to the crime scene to deal with the consequences of yet another family battle of the deranged rich pure-bloods.

Sirius held the attic the entire day, against the combined might of the Blacks and of the Malfoys, with selfless aid of all the Boggarts, Doxies, Pixies and other unknown Magical Creatures that shared the attic with them and showed little and less liking for other wizards. When the motorcycle came back crushing down the chimney, all Doxies were dead and Sirius's defences were about to be breached.

"Right on time," he muttered. "I could use some help."

"No, Sirius. Take your Cube and leave. It is time."

"No, it's not. I'm sorry, great-great-grandfather. I know I should leave, hell, I even want to, but you are now my family. Like uncle Alphard and cousin Andromeda were in my time. You are the only Black not blasted from the family tree that I, Sirius Orion Black, recognise as my kin. I will not leave you."

Blue fumes started crawling through the attic door and there was not much time left before they would be captured and killed by Arcturus and his legion.

"Sirius, remember the family tapestry in your time! I am sure you had to study it in great detail as a child. Remember it! You know what day is today, don't you?"

"Today…. Wait... Today is the day that you die?! But how do you know? I never told you, did I?"

"You just did," Phineas chuckled as if dying was the funniest thing of all. "Take the Cube and leave! Please, Sirius. If you consider me your family, honour me in life. Remember me for who I truly was. _Everything_ that I was. Not only the part that the others have seen."

Sirius accepted the Cube, but he doggedly held his ground when the attic door went tumbling down and said softly, not looking at all at a group of wizards storming in when he spoke: "I'm not leaving."

Phineas responded by directing his wand at Sirius's chest, swiftly as a lightning. He spoke with great authority and the cruellest voice Sirius had ever heard him muster, putting all his considerable magical strength behind a single word.

"Imperio!"

"Go home!" Phineas commanded and Sirius obeyed against his will, caught by surprise and the immeasurable strength of the Unforgivable curse, moving with Animagus speed. Both the rider and the bike seemed like one living organism launched up the chimney, disappearing in a burst of green and red flames all over the cloudy sky of London.

Arcturus Black ruthlessly pinned his grandfather Phineas Nigellus to the attic floor and twisted his neck until it broke.

But he couldn't break down the content smile gracing the dead lips of the blind old wizard.

xxxxxxxxxx

A few days later a funeral was held for Phineas Nigellus Black, beloved husband, father and grandfather. Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore came to pay their last respects in memory of his friendship with their father.

Albus cried, but Aberforth remained calm and he suffered a strange revelation when he came closer to the deceased. Bowing slightly to straighten his robes before officially expressing the condolences to the mourning family, he noticed Phineas had a small wooden cube in his pocket. The cube was filled with light, warm golden light with the slightest touch of green. Three words were carved on the outside in thick old-fashioned hand-writing, " _For Ariana Dumbledore_."

The words vanished when Aberforth read them and despite being very much ashamed of his actions, he stole the object and hid it in his sleeve, thanking his somewhat darker face colour for not blushing as a teenager.

Unlike Albus, Aberforth never lost faith. He firmly believed that Ariana did not die but just left to some place unknown as of yet, and with this in his mind he had already ordered a portrait of her, letting the artist use the last image of Ariana in his memory. It was going to fit perfectly in the inn he had just bought in Hogsmeade.

 _Maybe this is some kind of clue_ , thought Aberforth as he expressed his deepest condolences to Arcturus Sirius Black, discovering for the first time that just like Albus and their father, he also had a gift for manipulating other people, albeit limited. Ashamed and afraid of himself, Aberforth retired to a peaceful life of the innkeeper for the next 70 years. The small stolen Cube was safely encrusted in the middle of the top side of Ariana's portrait frame. Aberforth waited patiently for a new tide, for another sign, for the times to change, never losing hope that he would see his sister again.


	18. Maternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where if the evil is real, so is the good

The Easter holidays passed and Ariana's time drew near.

She suspected she should have given birth already, but for the fact that she passed through the Veil of Death, which interfered in the normal passage of time. Her pregnancy turned to be a bit longer than most. Ariana decided to enjoy every second that her baby chose to remain in her belly. She hid her condition from everybody, painfully insecure of who to turn to when the labour finally started, as it could happen at any moment.

Minerva McGonagall and the other teachers worked hard, reinforcing the defences of Hogwarts for the battle everybody was expecting might come. All except Snape who did his best to hamper the collective effort during the day, only to contribute to it tenfold during the night.

Aberforth visited the castle more often than ever, carrying a small grey and yellow lizard hidden in his robes, secretly adding Reality Expanding Powder, as per Val's instruction, to every old and new ward of Hogwarts alike. It was a special ingredient designed by Ignotus Peverell based on distilled dragon fire, with the power to maintain a dimension shift in place in large spaces, without depleting the spell caster and risking her life.

Val refused to reveal her allegiance to the good cause to McGonagall and others, despite Aberforth's insistence, claiming she was on nobody's side but her own. There were more important things to worry about: she was only moderately pleased with the progress of the application of the Powder and expressed her doubts that Hogwarts was too grand and too impregnated with magic. She might not be able to create a stable alternative dimension for all souls to be found on the grounds, if and when the day of the battle finally came.

Severus spent sleepless nights with his hooked nose deep in the library books and Merlin forsaken scrolls, trying to find a solution to the problem. Other nights he had to dedicate himself to finding diplomatic solutions which would prevent the Carrows from killing off the students, especially one Neville Longbottom, the new leader of the students' resistance, formerly better known for his great talent in exploding cauldrons.

Ariana played her part of a portrait to a dozing perfection, not wishing to show herself too much as a ghost in her new vulnerable condition. She didn't want the Carrows to report to Voldemort the presence of the ghost he supposedly annihilated, afraid that he would realise his mistake and take his time to use the correct killing curse on her in the second try. The pregnancy overshadowed all other personal issues to the point that she didn't even think of Sirius. She was truly grateful there was work on the defences of the castle to be done at night, with the help of the ghosts, walking coats of armour and Peeves.

Ariana, Aberforth, Snape and Val were the night shift of the castle workers, whose effort was going to remain nameless and without praise, and they were immensely proud of it. Peeves would cheer Ariana up with his omnipresent mischief directed to all the living night prowlers in the castle, students and teachers alike, of which there was never a shortage. She soon discovered there was more than one use for the many broom cupboards in the castle, from storing Dung Bombs and similar articles to other activities among the student body, which would make her blush and miss Sirius all over again.

Exhausted, Ariana was happy to be able to sleep during daytime and forget about the imminence of giving birth. As usual, all her knowledge about it came from books and they informed that delivery at home, alone as she intended to do it, presented an unacceptable risk for both the mother and the baby.

She blessed wizarding fashion for its wide comfortable robes, which she wore in very many layers since Christmas, so that no one could see her protruding stomach or notice when the baby would kick her. Some mornings after the night shift work in Hogwarts, she would hide in the back of her portrait and purposefully wear a tight red T-shirt with the title _Bad Excuses_ she stole from Val the one and only time she visited the pub in the past two weeks. It was made of some stretchy fabric, and she couldn't explain why she snitched it except that Val was always so happy when she wore it, and Ariana hoped for a miracle to help her deliver the baby. She could use any help she could get, and the T-shirt most illogically seemed like an excellent start.

Ariana would sit for hours and look at the baby kicking, plain visible on the outside of her huge belly, imagining what were the little arms and what the little legs. She would caress it mindlessly and whisper to it before succumbing to dreamless sleep.

At night she sometimes sat with Severus, who was distant and closed like a book no one touched for generations. He found it more and more difficult to accept the degree of contempt he was awarded by the staff and most of the students. The lines on his face grew deeper, the hair if possible greasier, and the occasional torture from Voldemort did not help matters in the very least.

Ariana remembered the night when he returned soaked as if he had taken a bath in a frozen lake, and she made a mistake of rubbing his feet, that cost her Val's friendship. After the episode, Val treated her as a part of the team, but the initial mothering attitude and care towards Ariana were gone for good.

She also made tea to Severus that night and put him to bed as a child. He seemed ill but also extremely pleased with whatever he had done outside.

"Albus!" Ariana woke up her brother's portrait. "What did you send him to do?"

"He delivered Harry a weapon." Albus smiled, still half asleep.

"Do any of us know all your plans with Harry?" Ariana sighed.

"No, of course not. Severus doesn't know them either, so don't bother pressing him for information. Do I know yours about the castle defence?"

"No, of course not, dearest brother. I trusted you as a child and then you presented me to Gellert. I'll not make the same mistake again."

They both forced a smile to hide the tension between them about the time of their lives they could still not discuss in detail. Ariana found she could tolerate Albus again, in understanding he was only a wizard and prone to making mistakes just like anyone else, but she would never admit that to him, or not yet in any case. Albus for his part wanted to ask for forgiveness and give some explanations of his own, but he never found the courage to speak up. He frequently ended up even more depressed than Severus, as portraits could not eat sherbet lemon sweets to feel better.

Since that night, Ariana developed a ritual of absent-mindedly making Severus tea before he would go to bed, especially if they happened to sit together in the evening. Snape wouldn't accept it at first but as he recognised the harmless sisterly nature of Ariana's approach, he slowly gave in to the peculiar companionship they developed. They mothered each other in turn to ease the passage of time, while they were both growing irascible without confessing to anybody the real reasons for their bad mood. Snape expected to die in the final battle with Voldemort, which was approaching fast, just like Ariana's due date. The funny thing was they became closer than most brothers and sisters were, yet they never managed to be completely sincere to each other and admit the true nature of their most important problem.

So they spoke of insignificant things.

"Val is avoiding me," Severus said. "since I went to look for her in the bar she only works with Aberforth."

"With me it's even worse, she is glaring at me. I'd say she's probably angry because I ruined her father's project to save Sirius. If they succeeded she could be back in Brazil by now. I think she doesn't like it too much over here. Even her Animagus form hates this cold climate. It's killing her."

Severus smirked. "The weather could be better, couldn't it?"

"Do you fancy her?" Ariana asked, passing him a cup of tea, noticing how his fingers that took the cup from her hands turned cold as ice after he heard her question.

"I will take your silence as a yes," she continued as Snape looked as though intensively wished that the ground would swallow him. "You should do something about it. It's not that she's stuck in some other place and time like Sirius."

"I tried." Severus's eyes turned pitch black and shiny as oil.

"And?"

"It didn't work very well."

"You know, Severus, incredible things do happen from time to time. The Muggles call them miracles," said Ariana thinking of Sirius.

"I don't believe in miracles, Ariana."

"Neither do I. But my father did."

"Didn't your father die in Azkaban? What an impressive result of his faith!" Snape said sarcastically.

Ariana ignored his attitude and just stated calmly, "He still believed. Despite everything. And I _am_ here now. It's almost a miracle when I remember where I was a year and a half ago."

"Where were you exactly at that time?" asked Severus innocently. Ariana's life before falling to the Veil was another taboo topic between them he seemed eager to breach, but she never gave in to his attempts at inquisition.

"In the middle of nowhere," said Ariana, matching Snape's best cynical tone.

"I have to admit that for me it almost equals a miracle to have a conversation with someone who is not completely incompetent," retorted Severus maliciously.

Ariana thought that only Severus could give such an ugly sounding compliment when she felt a peculiar tightening in the stomach and swallowed. _No_ , she thought, _not yet. Please._ She had another sip of tea but the sensation came back after some time. She was thankful that Snape seemed to be dozing. He would take his tea half-lying in bed, and sleep sometimes tricked him from the warm liquid and relaxing conversation they shared, but mostly from the fact that lately he barely slept at all. She stopped talking and waited to hear his gentle snores before removing an empty tea mug from his hands and departing in a rush she had never known from the Headmaster's quarters.

Stumbling back to Hog's Head through the secret passages of Hogwarts, she couldn't transfigure into ghost anymore. She met several students on the way, fortunately either members of the resistance or snogging couples, and they didn't pay attention to her long enough to see that one of the castle ghosts and portraits has turned flesh and blood.

Sheltered in Hog's Head, she paced like a rabid animal in front of her painting frame, unable to enter it no matter how hard she tried. That was it. She was going to have a baby and any magical transfiguration became impossible. Like a wounded animal, she felt an overwhelming urge to hide somewhere where no one could find her until she recovered and where her baby would be safely born.

Ariana trusted her new small circle of friends in Hogwarts with her life, but she wouldn't entrust any living being, portrait, or ghost with the life of her child. If anyone knew, Voldemort could learn the truth as well. And she was not going to allow that. Sirius may have been lost, she might die prematurely due to the consequences of unnatural time travel through the Veil, according to Val's father, but their child had to live.

In despair she noticed a small angular object encrusted on top of her portrait frame, a wooden cube glowing with faint golden light. Despite having read many times that trusting unknown magical objects was extremely dangerous and certainly not recommended, she felt attracted to it and noticed that an inscription in green and silver appeared on it out of the blue. There was only one word: _Home._ Irresistibly drawn to it against her will, she touched the object and shrunk. The world was pulling at her belly button.

 _A Portkey_ , she thought as she landed in the basement kitchen of a familiar old family house, into the company of a drunken house-elf and a black-haired woman with heavy lidded eyes, both seated in shared misery at the long rectangular table.

Ariana flinched at the sight of Bellatrix Lestrange when another unpleasant tightening sensation crossed her body. She stumbled and barely managed to get hold of one of the chairs to sit down instead of falling.

"Mistress! Young Mistress! We is having uninvited guests! Filthy Mudblood! Leave my Mistress! Mistress is sick. Kreacher helps her while Kreacher's Master Harry Potter is away," the elf croaked.

Bellatrix Black stirred from unearthly stupor only to speak in an unnatural high-pitched voice that would make anybody's blood run cold. Even Kreacher seemed perturbed.

"Not a ghost, are we?"

Ariana could not answer as another cramp made her double her body over the table and whimper. The movement made her feel the release of warm water running down her thighs, soaking her robes and undergarments.

"A sick ghost then?" Bellatrix asked in a crazed, smoothly running drawl.

Ariana finally managed to look at Bellatrix, whose maniacal demeanour did not agree with her appearance. She was dishevelled and looked more human than usual. Following an irrational impulse, Ariana handed the small wooden cube she had still been holding to the older woman.

The artefact assumed perfect Slytherin green and silver coloration and spoke in vaguely familiar male voice, "Great-great-granddaughter, help her!"

Bellatrix snorted derisively and moved her wand to destroy it. But before she could even think of the correct spell, green chains made of light and air bubbled from it and turned into rampant hissing snakes, wrapping Bellatrix tightly in a mortal embrace.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Cube then displayed a perfect image of a man whom Bella recognised from portraits as one of her most ancient and most honourable relatives. Phineas Nigellus Black spoke menacingly, "Again, I told you to help her! It would be wise to heed my advice!"

"Kreacher!" Bellatrix called finally to the elf, who was hiding under the table from the dark magic object which attacked his mistress. "Let's see what's wrong with her. Lay her on the table!"

The elf obeyed. The snakes relented and turned into intricate silver design of a singular beauty on the hooded Death Eater's cloak the older woman had been wearing. Nonetheless, Bellatrix had the feeling that they might attack her again, should she choose not to follow the orders of her noble ancestor.

Natural curiosity somehow made its way through the many layers of despair Bellatrix nursed, when she finally examined Ariana's face adorned with pain. In a second glance she noticed the unique way in which Ariana's wide and purposefully opulent robes fell around the child bearing parts of the female anatomy.

"Bugger…" she said, not believing her eyes. "Kreacher, the elves' magic includes some midwife skills, doesn't it?"

"Kreacher knows an Elf who knows. Her name is Winky."

"Find her and bring her here immediately!" Bellatrix shrieked and returned to the talking Cube, pleading for further instructions with sheepish pale eyes. But the object turned speechless and immobile, just like the snake pattern on her robes, and it refused to give her any more clues.

There was no other way out but to turn her attention to Ariana.

"Nod if you can't speak. You told me the truth about Voldemort. Don't bother to deny it. Did you also tell me the truth about you and Sirius?" she asked in a commanding voice.

Ariana nodded.

"Are you having his child?"

Ariana nodded again, and smiled despite her obvious discomfort.

"Bugger…" Bellatrix discarded the heavy Death Eater cloak and paced up and down the kitchen, and around the table, like a caged panther.

Ariana's eyes grew wide with apprehension if not outright fear. Thick beads of sweat crawled out under her hairline. At that moment, something changed in the posture of the older witch. She mechanically wiped Ariana's sweaty forehead with the hem of her dark robes. Summoning a pillow, Bellatrix made Ariana lay on her side as she remembered her mother had asked to be positioned when her youngest sister Narcissa was being born and said, simply:

"You're stuck with me, alright? Don't be afraid. I won't kill you. Not on purpose in any case. Not yet."

Ariana spoke with effort, "Right. I… I never had a sister. Be one now…. You can… kill me… if you wish… after."

Bellatrix tried to picture Narcissa's beautiful face before she instinctively took Ariana's hand and said, "Breathe."

Ariana's wandless magic reacted immediately to a stranger's touch and sent Bellatrix flying fast into the kitchen wall. The sound of shattering dishes in century old cupboards clinked in ghostly silence. The air became a swirl of black, mixed with Slytherin green and silver, invading the loneliness of Grimmauld Place 12, when Bellatrix fell hard on the kitchen floor.

"Is this how cousin Sirius fell for you? He was always in for a good duel," commented Bella when she came back to her senses.

"Bella... I lied to you... about Sirius. He didn't forgive... you. He still hates... you. I'm so sorry," said Ariana in a mood for confession.

"I know. I think I've always known. The Blacks are not the forgiving types."

"I guess... not. Do you think that he... might... forgive... me?"

"For what?" Bellatrix felt a fresh surge of curiosity to learn exactly who the other woman was and what she did with her cousin, considering they were truly stuck together at that point. She did not go to Malfoy Manor since the night she spent with Charlie and she would avoid doing so until the unavoidable summons of her Dark Mark would force her to return.

"I..." Ariana bit her tongue not to scream as another contraction came to its peak. When she felt a temporary relief, she continued in a troubled voice. "I let him believe he truly died and that I was some kind off companion in afterlife... Argh! It hurts!"

"Breathe or I will kill you!" Bellatrix hissed, and this time it was Ariana who squeezed her hand and whimpered, biting the pillow not to scream.

Bellatrix dared to look under Ariana's robes to check if there was a baby coming but she couldn't see a thing.

"Lumos" she said lifting the robes up to have a better view. With another flick of her wand, she started a fire in the fireplace, vaguely remembering reading something somewhere that the babies liked a warm room when they were born. Her hands were all sweaty and she had never felt so inadequate in her adult life.

Then she noticed the wetness on Ariana's robes resembling a mixture of water and urine and nearly retched. Bellatrix could mercilessly kill and torture without any second thoughts, but the sight of undefined body fluids was just too much for her.

"Scourgify," she firmly pronounced the cleaning spell, waving her wand over the messy robes, trying to keep the content of her stomach down, wondering what was taking Kreacher so long...

Ariana continued speaking, "The Veil… took me. Brought me here. Whispered… to me… It felt safe to go."

"It whispered to Sirius as well. I could hear it when we were duelling," confirmed Bellatrix.

"I wonder… where it would have taken… you. "

"It apparently took my cousin to a better place," Bella said ironically and continued in a more casual tone. "You and I are good now and what is happening to you can take some time so I will ask you some questions to kill that time, okay?"

Ariana nodded.

"Where is Sirius hiding? How did he survive? Are you Albus's or Aberforth's granddaughter or great-granddaughter?"

"Sister."

Instead of being shocked, Bella gave in to hysterical ranting. "You must be what then, almost a hundred years old? More? Cousin Sirius never struck me as one who would fall for older girls. As if anyone would. Old women are for insipid tea parties and charity work. That is why I will not live enough to become one. Not me. Never! Ever! Not me…"

xxxxxxxx

Ariana found that Bellatrix on the verge of weeping was 10 times worse to listen to than the dangerous variety, and she was sorely tempted to send her flying again just to shut her up. Even in labour, if she aimed well in the moments of reprieve, she should have been able to hold her own ground fighting a distressed Bellatrix. But the thought of being left alone in Sirius's family house filled with malice and dark magic was not appealing in the least. She only visited it one time before with Snape and was appalled at the thought that Sirius actually had to live there as a child.

The verbal tirade mercifully ended as Bellatrix must have finally emptied her mind. So the two women remained silent for hours, one too absorbed enduring the pain and one too shaken at the core of her being. The labour followed its natural course and Bellatrix was still absent-mindedly holding Ariana's hand.

"I am truly Albus's and Aberforth's sister and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. I could blast you out of this house," asserted Ariana bravely, interrupting the silence in a single breath between two contractions.

"Why don't you?"

"Perhaps for the same reason you didn't kill me… yet…"

"Wait, sister, truly?"

Ariana slowly nodded, staring at the understanding which finally dawned on Bellatrix's once beautiful face.

"Impossible!"

"Sirius would say… that…Yet here I am… … and he… He…!"

Ariana burst into tears and wept uncontrollably for all her present and past mistakes, completely forgetting that she was giving birth in a company of Voldemort's most loyal Death Eater.

"He's stuck in the past," Bellatrix finished the sentence full of unknown emotion, or perhaps it was only an emotion she didn't allow herself to feel for a really long time. She cradled Ariana's head like Ariana had done to Sirius when they met for the first time, spreading golden curls away from her face. The contractions came and went. They stopped speaking again and Ariana had to put up a fight to keep breathing.

"Bellatrix…"

"Bella is alright," the older woman insisted, feeling instinctively that the younger one was rapidly losing her strength.

"Bella, there is something you don't know…"

"I'm sure I don't know very many things," replied Bella, cynically. "It's not like the Order of the Phoenix gives a damn about my well-being."

"I've never told anyone, not in so many words, Bella…" Ariana accessed a well of newly found inner strength, when she saw clearly in the eyes of the woman next to her, that perhaps the only thing that could help them both live through the night was to tell Bella the entire truth.

"I was a mistress of Gellert Grindelwald," she spilled out the beginning and went on, decided to take the conversation where she wanted.

"As a girlfriend of a Dark Lord to another… I know exactly how it feels… I know how you must feel…"

"You know nothing!" Bellatrix found her voice, after Ariana's initial statement left her completely speechless for the first time that evening.

"Oh, but I do… I do… I could have fallen… in love… with Grindelwald… And he would have… killed me… without hesitation…"

"I could take that, Dumbledore…" "- Ariana!" "Right, Ariana," Bellatrix giggled and continued in her girlish shrilling voice, sounding more mental than ever. "I accepted that he could kill me. But in his memories you somehow served me I saw how completely indifferent he was to me. He thinks of me, my loyalty and my affection as much as of the black under his perfect nails! Or rather, he doesn't think about me at all…"

"Precisely… my point. Gellert… despised me… yet I would have… could have… loved him deeply… don't you understand…" another strong contraction came and Ariana clutched Bellatrix hand.

"What I'm trying to say… Bella… It doesn't matter at all… what happened… what might have happened… Get over it! You are you… Others… cannot taint you."

Bella laughed madly. "I don't need others for that. I've done it all by myself."

"What is the worst thing… you have done?"

"Tortured one of the greatest couples I've known into insanity to show loyalty and discover the whereabouts of the person who despises me. The Longbottoms. I dreamt about them all the time in Azkaban. If I could take that away, I would."

"Their son… Neville… I met him while haunting… Hogwarts."

Mentioning Neville almost put Bella on the edge of hysteric screaming. She started singing a baby lullaby to herself at once, closing her ears so that she wouldn't have to listen anymore, completely letting go off Ariana, trapped in a virtual prison of her sick mind.

"Stop it! Listen to me… Bella… You have to listen to me! I killed my own mother."

Bellatrix mouth fell wide open for the second time that night.

"They say it was an accident… But I know… A part of me wanted to blow everything up… A part buried deep down enjoyed… causing destruction. What a stupidity. I thought… I wanted... to be free… I cannot even… begin to tell you… about Albus… and his mistakes…"

After that Ariana could speak no more for a while, fighting a battle against her body and its spasms.

She continued in a hoarse, troubled voice, pausing every now and then: "There is more, Bella. When I was only 7... three Muggle boys attacked me... I barely survived... magic was gone... I became a freak... The healers told me... I was raped. Some time later... They tried again... They told me I was fun... they should have done... better... had more fun with me."

"I killed them all... Bella... I hated them for being Muggles and having dirty blood... My father... took the blame... went to Azkaban... He Obliviated me... But I do remember... I am a murderer... Another point... we have in... common... you and I…"

"Perhaps," said Bella, now completely calm and grown up, an image of Black aristocratic behaviour, composure and elegance "But the darkness in my soul runs too deep."

"You're a Legilimens. Look into mine! I'm too tired… to resist…"

Bellatrix obeyed, muttering the required spell and looked deep into a pair of bright blue eyes. She saw the darkness and the pain as strong as her own. She could almost taste how much Ariana had suffered and how cruel she had been on purpose to mere boys that attacked her. How she would have murdered Grindelwald had she had a chance and how she manipulated Sirius in cold blood. Yet Ariana's soul remained anchored to the light in a manner Bellatrix never believed possible.

"I cannot do what you're asking of me," said Bella. "And you cannot even deny the elementary truth yourself. The evil is real."

"So is the good," retorted the younger looking, much older woman before sinking into stubborn silence, her mind her own and fully closed once again.

The early morning light crept into the kitchen through the door hinges of a small door leading to the garden, chasing the nightly shadows away. Both women were quiet, one breathing and whimpering, and the other still haunted by nameless demons.

Two house elves arrived with a crack and soon there was a mug of hot tea in Bellatrix's hand. Ariana was cleaned and positioned more comfortably and Winky assured all present that they could still wait another half a day for the baby, as it was Ariana's first, and not all water broke as it seemed to Bellatrix, inexperienced as she was in matters of child birth.

Winky seemed calm and friendly, in sharp contrast with the tattered clothing she wore and her strong smell on stale Butterbeer. Ariana's labour entered into a calmer phase or it simply couldn't get worse anymore. She summoned all her strength to beg for reassurance.

"Bella… You won't tell your master…"

"Here. Take my wand. The spell is Obliviate. I'm sure you remember it."

"I can do it... without the wand... But no... No, Bella... I won't do it... I believe you..."

"Dumbledore trusted Snape. See what happened to him," Bellatrix giggled in a more normal conversational female tone, enjoying the flavour of her tea.

"Dumbledores are… trusting types. Don't laugh… Please…"

"Spoken like Dumbledore's sister and the leader of the Order. You are lucky that the Dark Lord didn't believe you," said Bellatrix seriously.

"Trust Tom Riddle to disregard the obvious!" Ariana snorted in contempt. Blowing all air out of her lungs felt so good following a pace of another contraction. "Damn Voldemort! To hell with him!" screamed Ariana as her labour finally went into the final phase and the baby began to push its way out.

"I won't tell Voldemort. On my word as a Black."

It was the first time after many years that Bellatrix used her maiden name.

Seconds later two full teams of Snatchers crushed into the protective Anti-Apparition wards around Grimmauld Place 12 and had to stay out of their job for several weeks. The house boosted its defences on its own, reacting to old magic stored in its walls. Voldemort never found out how a mere house defied him, protecting its new young Master who was just being born to the world.

Ariana felt that she truly had no more strength left when she heard a faint cry. The elves lay a scrawny, twitching bundle in her arms and she felt a tiny bony body press into her chest. So alive. All she could do was smile.

"It's a boy," said Winky.

"So unfair," Bellatrix muttered towards a child. "It's so unfair that I witness your coming to the world."

"So many things are not fair," whispered Ariana. "Let's just keep on going."

"Right. I'll be going then," Bellatrix said and handed back the Time Spanning Quill and Parchment to Ariana.

"Hey, wait a bit! And you can keep those!" Ariana refused the magical stationery, and gently placed the baby half way into Bellatrix's arms. "You've got to help me with the name. In your family it's about the stars. And we are fond of names beginning with the letter A."

Bellatrix looked shy when she made her suggestion, "Alphard Phineas Black."

She almost dropped the baby in his mother's arms and Disapparated back to Malfoy Manor in great haste. If she wanted to live through the war, she had to be very careful and stop thinking about blasted members of the family tree killed by her own wand, their Mudblood partners and unimportant offspring. Yet witnessing a birth shook her on many levels she didn't know existed and Bellatrix knew she was never going to be quite the same again **.**


	19. Purposeful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Val and Severus share a broom cupboard and much more

Val and Severus looked like a pair of Inferi. Their time was running out and the defence of Hogwarts was far from ensured.

It was May and they haven't slept properly since March, working every night not to be seen by staff or students, mounting the necessary prerequisites for the biggest dimension shift ever recorded in Hogwarts, a History, and perhaps the greatest one ever attempted in the history of magic.

The plan was simple, or so it seemed.

As soon as Voldemort launched the attack, Val would pull the essence of all living beings present in the castle and on the grounds into another dimension where they would sleep peacefully until the battle was over. Only an image of their body would remain in battle. Everybody was essentially going to dream the battle no matter how real it would feel. Val mentioned that her dreams felt too real most of the time anyway.

Even the Death Eaters would be spared as the spell could not distinguish between friend and foe. Val would refrain from any individual movements from one dimension to another as she was wont to do in her pub; playing pranks on Bella and Lucius, keeping them in the bar yet letting them believe they were in the apothecary section of her universe.

The shift would not work for Voldemort, Harry Potter, Snape and Bellatrix, from what they knew for sure, or for any other being with a damaged soul they didn't know about. They would stay real in the company of shadows. Val was wandering about Remus Lupin, but Severus theorized that while his werewolf transformation was physically radical, it did nothing to harm his human soul.

The execution was far from simple. The Reality Expanding Powder helped create and hold an alternative safe dimension grid in a defined place. The dragon fire had to be distilled. It was a very powerful ingredient. A minuscule quantity of it first had to be covered with grains of tropical sea sand to stop smouldering. Then it had to be exposed alternatively to sunlight and moonlight, and stirred carefully for the fire to pervade the sand and the light. The process was time consuming and the best results were achieved if the dimension shifter prepared the powder. Val mixed it manually twice a day, always with clean hands.

 _Beautiful hands,_ thought Snape secretly, and not only because they possessed the gift of creating parallel realities. _And despite the long scratches on her forearms._

Severus dared make an uncharacteristically altruistic offer to brew a potion against her injuries, but she wouldn't even tell him where they came from, and much less allow him to touch her and examine them.

 _I guess I cannot blame her much,_ believed Severus, looking at his sallow coloured hands and feeling like an idiot.

Brewing the Powder in the Headmaster's office helped shorten the time Val would otherwise spend being a pickled tropical lizard in the Potions Master collection, and she would immediately transform into one if anybody ventured inside. Luckily they didn't get many visitors, thanks to perfectly murderous attitude of the Headmaster Snape, who now came close to Phineas Nigellus Black in the unofficial open competition for the most hated Headmaster of Hogwarts of all times.

In May there was sufficient Reality Expanding Powder placed on all key points of the Hogwarts walls, and in regular intervals on the perimeter of the grounds, but they couldn't discover the control point, a unique place in the castle from which Val could summon instantly all the other powder-enhanced dimension-shifting points, and place everyone smoothly and quickly where she wanted them to be.

And she wanted them safe from any harm, to thwart Voldemort and thus revenge her father's suffering and death.

There were many other details in the plan of which they preferred not to think about, such as that it was based on the assumption that Voldemort would not recognise on time the dimension shift for what it was as he had never seen one. Ignotus was adamant that despite being tortured before he died, he no longer possessed the gift at the moment of his passing. He could not let Voldemort into one of his realities and Voldemort never met Ignotus' mother, the previous dimension shifter in the family, who was Brazilian, and had died across the ocean.

Their most important advantage resided in the fact that the therapeutic usage of the gift that Val developed and perfected, by separating the essence from the very corporeal image of the person in two different dimensions, had never been done before on a large scale. Voldemort could not know about it unless he or one of his Death Eaters recently travelled for a very alternative healing or wellness treatment to South America.

Val's innovation was based on imitating the natural condition of a dimension shifter, the only witch or wizard totally resistant to Legilimency by nature. When Voldemort tortured Ignotus Peverell, the man had already forsaken his unique ability, but his soul continued being inaccessible to anyone unless he wanted to allow it himself. Snape would smirk in satisfaction whenever he imagined Voldemort's frustration at the total failure to extract any information from Peverell by force.

Be as it may, theory and practice were two very different things, and Voldemort was going to feel something was wrong, just like Bellatrix and Snape always did in Val's pub. And to make things worse, they had no idea where Bellatrix was.

They had no way of knowing if their little trick of letting her see what Voldemort really thought of her worked or not in the long run, and if it did, in which way. Bellatrix could turn crueller than Voldemort since she had nothing left to loose. She hadn't been seen much among the Death Eaters either in the past month, as far as Snape could tell when he attended the meetings.

It would be enough for Voldemort or Bellatrix to start throwing killing curses indiscriminately for a few minutes during the battle to create chaos and cause many true victims. Any curse used by them would pierce both dimensions and have an effect similar to the one to be expected in normal reality, only much less certain. It would be next to impossible to dodge or counter the spells: their impact was going to be totally unpredictable because damaged souls were constantly going to oscillate between the two available realities, unable to stick fully to only one location.

On the positive side, not every killing curse was going to have a killing effect. For all they knew, it could also cause flowers to start growing.

They refused to consider the alternative possibility where a well aimed good old Cruciatus curse could become so enhanced that many would survive the battle only to spend the rest of their lives in St Mungos wing for victims of incurable magical diseases.

Snape hoped he would not harm or kill anyone by chance. He intended not to use any spells at all if possible, from the moment they launched the dimension shift. And he never mentioned to Val that  he could easily be among victims if somebody from the side of the light decided to target the greasy Death Eater who assassinated Dumbledore. The exemption of a divided soul worked both ways: one could kill and be killed in return. One could never be fully safe.

And they ignored as hard as they could the most significant detail of all. Their entire plan depended on a somewhat crazy trust into Albus's far-fetching plots, fuelled by the irrational belief that Harry Potter would prevail over Voldemort, despite and because he carried a piece of Tom Riddle's soul, which accidentally broke off and attached itself to Harry, when the Dark Lord tried to kill him as a one year old.

Severus and Albus managed to keep this last detail hidden from Val, despite her evident knowledge of Horcruxes. Snape was grateful that Ariana went into hiding shortly after her encounter with Voldemort in Malfoy Manor because he suspected she was the only one who could see through Albus's final plans and do something incredibly brave to ruin them.

After the initial shock of learning about those plans, Snape couldn't tell how he felt about the fact that Albus groomed Lily's son only to meet his death. On one hand, it was unpardonable and they were all going to burn in hell for it, if such a place existed. On the other, out of all wizards Severus had ever met, and he met a few, only Albus had the ability to make hopeless situations turn out for the better with his oblique orchestrations. One of such hopeless cases being Severus himself when he prostrated himself in front of the older wizard and promised to do anything to make up for his sins. And instead of facing the expected judgement, he had unexpectedly found a friend.

Ariana was very active wherever she was staying. She was sending them owls and directing the Order from a far, just like Albus could do during his prolonged absences when he was still alive. She drafted broadcast messages for illegal resistance wireless programme, ran by Lee Jordan, and instructed surviving Order members on how to hamper Snatchers and rescue caught Muggle born wizards and witches. Most Order Members believed that instructions came from professor McGonagall who for her part never suspected that the portrait Ariana was bringing her suggestions from her living counterpart and not from the portrait of the late Headmaster Dumbledore.

Aberforth seemed to be living a new life since his sister returned from the dead, but he rarely ventured to Hogwarts since she no longer stayed in Hog's Head. He'd claim he was needed elsewhere, without ever specifying what he did, leaving Snape and Val with even more work and less time to rest.

Sometimes, Severus secretly yearned for a glimpse of normality, of a careless, silly life he would never experience again, an existence full of gossiping and doing insignificant things. A whole life of having tea, reading the newspapers and complaining about the weather. Or even better, holding Quidditch grudges and taking house points from Gryffindor. Perhaps his work as a double spy was going to make it possible for others, Muggles and wizards alike, to continue living a trivially normal life, in which no great evil existed.

Just to keep up the appearances of a civil conversation, he would mention to Val his concern about the loss of Muggle lives if the battle went wrong and the Death Eaters went to party in the outside world. Val would simply laugh, her good mood contagious, and tell him not to worry, shoving into his hands another book or a scroll that could help them find a controlling point of Hogwarts.

It was all in vain.

They tried to launch the spell from the top of the Astronomy Tower, which they nearly destroyed in the attempt. They tried the Great Hall and Severus had to hide from the angry house-elves for ten days when the floor of the Hall collapsed into their kitchens. They tested the Headmaster's office, Hagrid's pumpkin patch and even Dumbledore's grave. That last attempt created a fire deep in the Forbidden Forest, instead of a new reality, and the Headmaster's office only showered them with sweets, making all the portraits laugh with delight. At times the spell would work for parts of the castle but never for all of its great surface, and it always lasted far too short to be satisfactory in case of dire need.

Dumbledore's grave was the most powerful place they discovered so far and they kept looking for the source of similar power, strong as the walls and enchantments of Hogwarts, but a little bit more manageable.

The times grew dark and darker still.

Despite all efforts of the Order, wizards were sometimes killed. Snape was deeply disturbed when they received an owl about the death of Ted Tonks, a Muggle born older colleague of his from school, whom he respected a lot for his bravery. On a positive side, there were less and less rumours about Bellatrix Lestrange. After capturing and torturing Hermione Granger in Malfoy Manor, a deed that soon become a wizarding legend about both the merciless perpetrator and the brave victim (depending on who told the story and to which public), she didn't seem to have hurt anyone. Perhaps that was a good thing.

The werewolves working for Voldemort gossiped that the crazy bitch killed Fenrir Greyback for no reason at all, but they never dared to say that out loud to any of the carriers of the Dark Mark, in fear to share his fate. Snape asked Narcissa if there was any truth to these rumours, but was met only with her ice glare and utter refusal to discuss her sister, no matter how hard he tried. Now, if Bellatrix did kill Greyback, that was a very bad sign. A sign that their little stunt with feeding her Voldemort's memories only made her crazier than ever.

Xxxxxx

One day Voldemort visited the castle in person and desecrated Albus's grave, stealing the old wizard's wand.

Severus clenched his hands in the Headmaster's office when the Dark Lord left, shaking in cold fury at not being able to protect the memory of his friend, whose portrait just kept repeating to him to let it be, rejoicing at Snape's earlier report that Voldemort became extremely worried and protective of his snake.

Albus's portrait pointed out that the end was definitely coming, whistling a merry tune.

 _The end will bring nothing good to me_ , thought Snape, hoping that death was not too painful. Perhaps less so than the torture that would surely precede it, when the final sentence was carried out by Voldemort.

 _How does it feel, to die,_ he wondered many times. It felt odd, knowing that he was going to die soo , yet not knowing the exact day and manner of his own execution. Unfortunately, Voldemort was not that stupid to overlook the fact that Snape should have been the rightful owner of the Elder Wand for killing Albus, and he was bound to figure out sooner or later that the path to the allegiance of the unbeatable wand went through murder. Of his faithful servant as was the case, and even more faithful Order spy.

Whether this misconception would help bring Voldermort's end at Harry's hands or someone else's, Severus did not know. But he knew that they had to try and that it was as good a chance as they were going to get, short of accepting verything was in vain. _Including Lily's death..._

 _Maybe it's a good thing to die. After all, everyone does that, sooner or later,_ thought Severus and wished to believe it, but his wishes were not enough. He _knew_ that Lily also wanted to live even if she didn't hesitate for a single moment to cast away her life for her son.

 _Maybe I will sink deep, and drown in the ocean, and earn forgiveness for my mistakes. Or eternally pay for them, either should be possible._ He imagined a whole deathtime of detentions spent polishing Griffindor Quidditch tropheys, and wanted to retch.

Xxxxx

Ever since Voldemort took the invincible wand, Ignotus chose to remain locked up in his shop, playing trumpet night and day, just when they could use his help to make the bloody spell work. When Val tried to get him out by force, he shocked  
her by yelling: "Go away! It matters not. Great-uncle Antioch's toy will betray them all in the end."

Val gave up and listed the great uncle Antioch's toy on her already long list of unanswered questions from the part of her father, realising he was getting irascible as usual because the anniversary of his own death was fast approaching, at the same time as the possible end of Hogwarts.

It was yet another question for which Val had no answer.

She knew that her father was not minimally impressed by Voldemort's power, and that just like her, he didn't care all too much about the greater good, or the welfare of the wizarding Britain, to which he didn't owe a very big deal in his life, except an old school diploma and a friend here and there.

Val wondered what else had happened to her father before he was killed that the arrival of his death day would always put him in such a foul mood. At least he was not making death day parties in Hogwarts with the other ghosts, famous for the amounts of rotten food stuffs that Filch had to dispose of in the days that followed.

A solution to save students had to be found, and real soon.

And then, finally, one day Val suffered a sudden revelation, bumped into Severus in her enthusiasm and unrolled a scroll pointing at it with a nervous flicker of her wand.

Xxxxx

"I am onto something," she said, excited, and Snape fought an urge to take her hands and kiss them. "What did you find?" he said instead.

"The power source. We stored it in the Room of Requirement and we yet have to give Voldemort some data about it, don't we? Read this, Severus. It's about blood magic and my blood is still in the Veil. The unsuccessful ritual we performed for Sirius should give me a degree of control over it, enough to execute the spell and keep it going for a day or two. We shouldn't need more time than that anyway," the flood of words escaped Val's mouth, her enthusiasm unstoppable. "The Dark Lord will want to win fast…"

"And lose even faster," concluded Snape, pleased at the perspective.

Val added mischievously, "If he notices any disturbance in magic, you can tell him that the Veil is doing it and you will not even be lying!"

They ran like crazy to the Room of Requirement. When Val wished for it to open, Snape was not surprised to see the immense green fields leading to the faraway horizon surrounding the Veil. _This is what she requires,_ he thought, admiring the landscape. The impressive archway still looked liked a black canvas tightly spun over its frame. _Or is it dark blue now?_ thought Snape and looked at the thing with utmost suspicion.

Val approached the Veil and closed her eyes, waving her wand in front of it as if she was trying to feel its magic before trying to do anything.

Her eyes shot open, pale blue as a lake far up in the mountains. Extremely careful to avoid the dark canvas in the middle, she touched one of the pillars of the arch with her wand.

"Dimensio," she whispered, and Severus mused that it was the first time he actually heard her pronounce the spoken incantation, when his senses were overwhelmed by a sound of an earthquake rolling in the room. Strange child-like whispers and visions of wings and feathers clouded his vision until he could not see Val or the meadow any longer.

He was alone in an abandoned broom cupboard. After what seemed an interminable time Val stormed into it and crashed into him with indisputable joy, "We did it! I will just not be able to go far away from the Veil as long as the battle is not decided."

Xxxxx

"So now we're in another dimension?" Snape asked coldly.

"I am. You know by now that you are neither here nor there, so don't hurt me."

"It seems real enough to me," Snape commented in a dry voice. "Let me check."

Suddenly he took both Val's hands in his as if he was trying to feel the solidity of them. Next he moved a few thick brown curls away from her face behind her ear, tucking them back into her unavoidable hair pin, admiring the beautiful blond and silver streaks she did her best to hide, examining her whole figure with an intensive look Val would normally see in his black eyes only when he verified that a particularly complex potion acquired a correct colour.

"If your entire alternative dimension is as real as this," he added without emotion, caressing her cheek in the gentlest possible manner, in stark contrast with his voice, "we found a way to save the staff and the students."

"My turn to check!" said Val and did something she wanted to do for a very long time. She cupped both his cheeks and lifted both index fingers in direction of Severus's eyes. When he instinctively closed them, she slowly drew the line with her fingers simultaneously over both of his eyebrows, starting from the inner corner of his eyes to the outer one.

"There, the illusion couldn't be more real! Are you happy about it?" she said, hoping Severus did not recognise the ancient ritual she had started for what it was, and thinking how wonderful it would be if she were allowed to complete it.

"I'm thrilled," said Severus cynically, offended, sounding like one betrayed, disappointed to the core for being only an object of her experiment. "Let's end the spell for the time being and break the news to Aberforth before anyone catches me in a broom cupboard with a woman."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later that afternoon Ariana returned out of the blue, for a short time she said, and she never told anyone where she had gone in the first place. Looking exhausted, yet more beautiful than ever, she demonstrated great interest in the blood magic theory of controlling the dimension shifting spell using the power of the Veil of Death. In the best Dumbledore fashion, she wouldn't tell why.

Val opened the Headmaster's office looking for Snape, only to find Ariana in her ritual of making Snape tea, while distractedly discussing with Albus the best ways to control powerful wandless magic they both possessed. She immediately stormed out hoping they had not seen her and her feet carried her almost against her will to the Room of Requirement, seeking something that would fill the growing emptiness of her heart. The room that opened for her was very different than before.

There was no Veil of Death and it was empty except for a hooded woman playing a piano to a portrait, a coat of armour and a ghost. _I hate portraits and false ghosts_ , thought Val. And for the first time in her life she also hated her own too ordinary face that could not be truly considered beautiful, not by any standards. The piano player looked at her then and Val saw her own face. Then a young noble face similar to her own just much more beautiful. The face she knew from her childhood nightmares.

"Mother," Val called but the woman would not answer. "Why did you leave me?"

The sound of piano was broken, off the key, a screeching cacophony of sound on the lose.

"Mother," Val whispered and burst into unstoppable tears.

xxxxxxxxx

Stealth had never been Val's strong point so both Severus and Ariana noticed her coming and leaving. As soon as she left, Ariana tossed a cloth over Albus's portrait as if she was covering a bird cage and cast Muffliato charm around it so that he couldn't hear what she wanted to say to Severus, "Now you know why she is avoiding you."

"Because I'm a charming bat from the dungeons, I reckon?"

Ariana gave up explaining. The chance of getting the message through Snape's thick head, that Val just ran away in tears because she clearly thought Snape and Ariana were an item, was as high as someone explaining to her that the Muggle boys did not exactly rape her all the way before she met Sirius.

"Indulge me and go after her, Severus. I brought a last will of someone that I need to discuss with Albus alone. It's a purely family matter. An inheritance of a kind. That's the reason I returned," she flashed before his eyes a tightly rolled piece of parchment with some traces of red ink visible on the outside.

In the absence of the better thing to do, Severus obeyed.

xxxxxxxxxx

Snape found Val hiding in the dungeons, pulling a brave face and pretending everything was all right. She reacted by blabbering inconsequentially of the coming battle and expressing opinions as to who might die in it in the end despite all. They worked for an hour adding more Reality Expanding Powder to the walls and to the foundations because Severus could not think of anything better to do. Although he felt they were wasting their final moments, and that he should do something else to use the little time he still had at his disposal.

 _Hogwarts is not going to let itself be taken alive and neither am I_ , Severus had to remind himself, trying to forget how fierce Val looked when she was smiling at the results of their nights' work. The death wish grew strong in his heart, the burning desire to play his final part in Albus's plan and set Voldemort firmly on the path to his well-deserved destruction. It was selfish, but he just couldn't listen to Val's chatting any more, accompanied by half-smiles he could not understand.

"Please, shut up," he told her and dragged her back towards the dungeons.

"What do you think you are doing, Severus?" Val reacted angrily at being manhandled as it was to be expected. He realised he brought her to his former private quarters close to the potions lab, a small set of two clean rooms on the ground level of the castle, which he had rarely used before as he vastly preferred the climate of the dungeons.

"I'm offering you some tea," he said, as if he was about to interrogate a dangerous prisoner.

He shoved Val unceremoniously in one of the bedroom chairs despite her loud protests and summoned some tea for both of them from the kitchens, hoping that the house elves were still asleep. He hated prying house-elves even more than pathetic family reunions.

"I know that students run away from my charm but you seemed immune to my presence so far. What's wrong with you?" he asked, fed up of the hide and seek game they played for months and thirsty, as usual, for the taste of truth, even if it would destroy him as it did so long ago when he finally understood that Lily did love Potter.

"I'm just so embarrassed to interrupt intimate moments of other people, that's all. You know, Ariana and you, or Ariana and Albus. I know it's childish. My father would say that I'm pouting. Or that I'm arrogant. I may be both. It comes from rather long time of making my own decisions and not caring really about other people's feelings."

Severus sighed at the rational explanation and waved his hand towards the tea set in front of them, "Does this feel intimate? We're just having tea. I had tea with Ariana and Albus earlier. What's intimate about that?"

Still speaking he noticed Val's eyes going wide as she brought the cup to her face and inhaled the aroma of wild cherry blossoms, before swaowing a small sip of tea.

Xxxxxx

 _Yes_ , thought Val, _this is most intimate_. She relaxed in her meadow mindscape thoroughly enjoying the moment and wished that the war was over.

They had their tea in silence until Severus stood up brusquely and said, "I wanted to show you something."

Val nodded and she was immediately swept in now familiar embrace of thick black vapour, flying her out of the castle in the direction of a small Muggle industrial neighbourhood.

She was deposited gently on a swing in a small children playground, completely empty, showing signs of some decay and usage, but still safe, pure and friendly. The black fumes materialised on a swing next to her and started swinging, long legs and robes flying up and down, the sallow face expressionless as usual, despite the body giving itself freely to frantic movement.

For Val it was only natural to join in as it was something she could do anyway with her father, her daughter and Regulus, despite being almost 40 years old. Val knew she would never be a truly serious person, but seeing Severus in this mood was a special treat. She supposed he did it for himself most of all: the level of frustration before the final battle must have been way too great to be drowned in several cups of tea.

She didn't think of kissing him as they flew back and forth, she just slightly toyed with all her dimensions in order to glimpse the mountain of pain stored inside the wizard, careful not to let him feel what she was doing and mindful of the need to keep her magical strength intact for the substantial shift she had to perform soon.

Val wished she could pierce a hole in Severus' armour, like in a balloon, and let all the pain run out.

"I met someone here a long time ago. She was everything to me," he said in a neutral tone.

It was the first time Severus spoke of the woman in his past, the one she had seen in Voldemort's memories, and Val's heart nearly stopped.

"Where is she now?" she asked, trying to keep calm.

"I lost her because of my kind and charming nature even before she died many years ago."

"I'm here," Val blurted, offering herself, letting him know, if he wanted to.

"Indeed," Severus agreed in an unusually sincere tone and then he continued swinging, lank hair drawing cursed patterns in the night air.

When they returned to Hogwarts, Val was bursting from positive energy.

"Wait here," she pleaded, "I have to do this alone. Please."

She left him standing in the Great Hall and immediately ran to the Room of Requirement, where she fearlessly touched the dangerous middle of the Veil of Death with her wand. She knew that she could never do the necessary with him present, it would've been too much. She would've given in to temptation and sacrificed her gift.

"Dimensio!" she spoke and before she finished saying the incantation, insistent whispers filled up the air around her and Hogwarts was immaculately split in two. All intact souls of living beings in the castle and on the grounds were safely shifted into a dimension where battle would be nothing more but a bad dream.

It was not only the power of the Veil, Val knew at that moment. The power required for the greatest spell of protection ever wrought in Hogwarts required the fullness of the heart of the spell caster. And her heart was full to the brim as it had never been before.

She could not remove her wand from the Veil but that was to be expected. Nevertheless she knew that the spell was going to hold now, for as long as it was necessary, for weeks, if required, on the sole condition that she didn't leave the castle. And she didn't want to leave Severus anyway. If necessary, she could get another wand later on.

Relieved beyond measure that she was able to do what was needed, she left, her wand sticking out from the Veil like a sword, piercing it.

Val was returning slowly towards the Great Hall, feeling the dimension shift in place. Hearing commotion in one of the corridors, she hid behind a suit of armour as there was not enough time to turn into her Animagus form. A bunch of wizards and witches, young and old, ran past her.

She was a lizard then and slithered fast after them, peering into one of the rooms.

It has begun.

Minerva McGonagall cursed Severus who flew away through the window. Soon, some students started evacuating and others marching to war.

Val never wanted to fight any battles, she didn't believe in dying for a good cause, nor in inner quality of any cause. But that day she learned what it was to have a purpose in life and to be willing to give anything and everything to make it work.

She wondered if that was how her father had felt about her mother.


	20. The Power of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Grindelwald's will is read

A single candle burned on a spindle-legged candle holder in the Headmaster's office. Ariana continued to drink her tea, gaining strength for a necessary conversation with her brother.

 _It's not going to be easy,_ she thought, but she felt the overwhelming need to put old grudges to rest and to learn the whole truth of what happened in the past and why Albus acted like he did, allowing Gellert to take custody of her. She didn't buy for a moment his pathetic excuse to Aberforth that he did not know. Albus was far too intelligent for that.

And then there was the will.

It arrived to Grimmauld Place 12 shortly after Alphard was born but Kreacher and Winky kept it from her, considering the "Young Mistress" too delicate for such reading. The scroll had been dropped by a strange looking owl, foreign and big-eyed, her feathers ruffled after a long distance flight. The parchment was black, the letters big and bright red. It was addressed to _Ariana Dumbledore (-Black? 1900-1927? 1998?), Grimmauld Place 12, London_. When Kreacher finally decided to stop punishing himself for keeping the letter a secret and gave it to Ariana, it was beyond her understanding how anybody knew how to find her there.

She didn't know how she felt when she read the contents of the will, and the fact that she didn't faint or puke gave great credit to her recently improved magical and personal integrity. To leave Alphard with Kreacher was the hardest decision she had ever made. Dressing him up way too warm and threatening Kreacher with socks if anything happened to her son, Ariana rushed to Hogwarts. When she arrived to the Headmaster's office, she was glad to see Severus after weeks of seclusion with her baby, but Val's intrusion was perfectly timed, and she was even gladder to get rid of him without hurting his feelings. Yes, he would deny he had feelings, but Ariana knew better and she had come to consider Severus to be her best friend. That was perhaps the only thing Albus and Ariana ever agreed about without discussion.

Yet what she needed to discuss with Albus could only be done in private. Very much so. Staring at Albus's frame still covered with a cloth, she wondered what her brother's reaction was going to be and decided it was time to find out.

"Albus," she said unravelling the cloth and letting it slide to the floor, "there is something you've got to see. And I warn you that it's not nice at all."

"Ariana," Albus acnowledged her, "where have you been?"

"One moment, brother," she said, "first things first."

Ariana carefully smeared a Portrait Snoozing Gel invented by Severus over the frames of all the former Headmasters to be certain that no one was going to listen in on their exchange. Phineas Nigellus was not there and he was almost family, in a way, despite that he didn't know it, so she skipped his frame for sentimental reasons.

With rhythmical movement she unrolled the will and remembered the exact echo of Gellert's cold-hearted voice in the small house above the sea. It was appropriate for what she was about to do. "Here, Albus. I cannot bring myself to read it, so a little trick will do."

" _Loquitur_ ," she spoke to the ragged parchment, making it read itself out loud in Gellert's voice.

" _Nurmengard, beginning of March 1998_

_The Last Will of Gellert Hieronymus Albert Grindelwald_

_To be delivered to Miss Ariana Kendra Hecate Dumbledore_ _in person_ _by the authorities of the prison after my death._

_Failure to comply with this request will result in a certain and immediate destruction of the prison and all its facilities as prior to my passing I will activate the old curse I personally placed in its foundations when I still ran the Institute._

_As a hint to the authorities I believe that she now resides in Britain but her exact whereabouts are a secret even to me. Had I known them, no walls would stop me to deliver her these words in person before my timely end._

_I fully trust the thoroughness of the prison administration, that I have frequently felt on my own skin in the long years of my stay, to be more efficient then I am in finding where she is._

_Should anyone try to open the second part, addressed to Ms Dumbledore, the consequences will not be nice: you will not succeed in reading it so don't bother to try._

_(the sign of the Deathly Hallows)_

_Beware and be prepared for the death is one day coming for us all,_

_Gellert Grindelwald"_

"How?" asked Albus, sounding terribly uncertain.

"Let him explain," Ariana replied, tired of everything, "then we talk."

The voice of a dead Dark Lord continued echoing in the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, implacable and surviving the demise of the wizard.

" _Dear Ariana,_

 _I will not ask for your forgiveness for_ _I deserve none. I didn't ask for your love nor offered my own._

_I made you believe lies about yourself, or rather I perpetrated and augmented the lies told to you by others and I am not sorry for that either. I simply believe it is time for you to learn the truth. Your magic is whole: get yourself a wand and start practising. Or do without, even better, Merlin knows you can._

_It shames me greatly but I have to confess it all now for I have no more time._

_Ariana, I wanted you badly. I wanted you like I have never wanted anyone before. You were so young when I met you. I was aware that my intimate tastes were_ _not for everyone's liking and I erroneously believed that if you_ _didn't know any better in life you could grow to accept me. It never occurred to me that you could have loved me just as well if I had only helped you and courted you the usual way._

_I was a killer at 10. For me killing came as natural as having a cup of tea. I did it when I was bored or simply because I could. I never questioned my methods. I never bothered to consider if magic was dark if it served my ends of expanding my power._

_When Albus defeated me in 1945, he spared my life. It was the worst punishment I could have received. He also paid me in kind by breaking my magic, which has become like yours, uncontrollable and unpredictable, essentially unusable._

_A fit punishment for my worst crime: you._

_Trust Albus to know about righteousness._

_That is how I lived for more than 50 years. And unlike you silly Dumbledores, I have always been a hopeless case for wandless magic so I had no way to recover properly._

_Albus let me live to pay for my crimes. But above all I believe he sought justice for you. For Albus is, was and always has been in favour of justice above all things. Even above love._

_My end is drawing near. I will soon die at the hands of Tom Riddle. Please let Albus know this – I will play my part in his charade, for the greater good. It's the least I can do. He will be pleased to hear a confirmation about what kind of fool Tom Riddle is and he will know what I mean._

_Ariana, I missed you for 70 years. That had been my true punishment for everything. And I couldn't believe my luck when I felt your existence again and I knew that you were alive so I could say my confession_ _before leaving this world. That is a rare magical gift we share, you and I, we could both sense the beings we were connected to, even from a great distance, as I am sensing your presence now across the entire continent after so many wasted years. And I envy the wizard who did better by you so very much. You were right in hiding him for me for I would have killed him for sure if I only could. I was never really good in sharing things._

_I wish to give you a parting gift, a few lines I dreamt about repeatedly in the short time when I had in my possession the painting of Nativity that took you away from me for real. The lie that Albus and I told Aberforth ironically turned out to be the truth._

_'They say that one day the Veil has to return to the place where it was taken from. Then all the good deeds wrought by the angels will come true. But no one knows where that place is.'_

_This I bequeath you, this is the inheritance you shall have from me. This is the single most important content of my Last Will and Testament to you._

_This is my single legacy to the world if there is any I deserve to have._

_Heed to these words. They remained engraved in my memory and I feel it is almost my duty to pass them on to you and that for you, they could be important._

_Goodbye, Ariana._

_I am going._

_I hope to shed a burden of my sins and see Albus on the other side, and him, him I will have to beg for his forgiveness. For I ruined all he held dear and I could have never given him anything in return. And it took me 70 years of questioning everything I have ever done to finally understand what I did._

_Farewell!_

_Gellert Grindelwald"_

The silence in the Headmaster's office was chilly, inhuman in its simplicity. Ariana folded her hands demurely in her lap to hide her uneasiness better. Slightly moved by hearing Gellert's confession in his living voice, against her own wishes, she asked: "Albus, could you please explain to me what he's talking about. What did he exactly do to you that could possibly be worse than what he did to me?"

"It's a long story, Ariana," said her brother's crumpled voice. "And I will try to explain it to you if you promise that you won't interrupt me. It is past time that I do it, and I owe it to you as surely as he owed to ask you for forgiveness, and did not, the fool."

"You lost the right to make any demands on me," said Ariana bitterly, "but I still want to hear what you have to say. I agree that it is past time that we have this conversation _long overdue,_ you and I."

Albus sighed and began his tale. "First of all, I'm sure that you are familiar with the work of Miss Skeeter about my life, as most wizards are these days. Also, as anyone can guess Miss Skeeter got plenty of things wrong from the old Bathilda Bagshot when she wrote her version of events. She presented my friendship with Gellert as a one summer get-together of two teenagers, if I recall correctly. I am too old to remember things these days... Severus was kind enough to borrow me the book. "

"Yes, and?" Ariana interrupted, impatient for Albus to get to the point.

However, the truth is quite a bit different, as you can guess better than anyone. Gellert was almost 8 years older than me. We met when I was 8 and Gellert almost 16 years old. He came to England from the continent as a strange pilgrim, chasing the wizarding legend of the Deathly Hallows. At first he couldn't find any hallows, deathly or otherwise, so he bought a house to live in, which belonged to a witch deceased years ago. Her family wanted to get rid of it because it was haunted by a very peculiar curse. It was said that wizards who ventured into the house disappeared without trace and disturbing noises could be heard from it at night. The neighbours called them whispers from the world of the dead...

The witch was called Vanna Prince-McMillan. She was one of the kindest persons ever to exist in wizarding history, a widow, living alone with her son, who left home when he was of age to work in curse-breaking somewhere in Siberia.

Gellert bought the house, expecting to find a buried treasure, or fight a great danger threatening to consume him. But the house did nothing at all and all his dreams of greatness remained unfulfilled. So he decided to get rid of the obsolete magical objects there and that is how he met my father. Father was thrilled with artifacts he received and he had been known for helping people out for no reason at all, so he arranged Gellert an internship in St Mungos to have an occupation during his search for hallows. They kept in touch. I would occasionally see him when he visited my father.

When I grew older, and my studies in Hogwarts progressed, Gellert and I became best friends. He invited me to join him in his search. I have never met another wizard whose intelligence and intellectual curiosity matched mine. My first mistake was getting estranged from our brother Aberforth whom I considered too limited to share my interests. I believed that Gellert and I were meant to find the hallows and jointly become masters of death. The hallows, you surely read about what they are; the invincible wand, the resurrection stone and the invisibility cloak. And I can ensure you that they are very real and not only stories for little children. But I have my doubts now that they make you a master of anything whatsoever."

Ariana's face was inscrutable. The portrait of Albus Dumbledore sighed and went on.

"In any case, Gellert agreed with me that with the help of the hallows, we would become the masters of death, together, and it would all be for the greater good. It was always about the two of us, you have to understand that, Ariana."

"And where was I in your dreams of grandeur dear brother?" Ariana inquired, distractedly looking towards the door, wishing she left with Severus to do something useful and skip the painful discussion altogether. She tried to suppress her disappointment that Albus was after all a heartless monster she always suspected him to be. She should never have come to talk to him. There was no possible explanation, even less justification for what he had done.

"When I graduated from Hogwarts, the death had already taken our father and I couldn't do anything about it. As I couldn't do anything to help you or our mother, the death's next victim. I was heart-broken and Gellert went for a tour of Europe in search for hallows, concluding they abandoned England."

"Somewhere in Spain he defeated a dark creature, with no human form, but with something akin to human understanding. It lived there in tree-holes and terrorized local population drinking their blood. Before Grindelwald disarmed it, the creature boasted to be Antioch Peverell the 12th, owner of the unbeatable wand. Local people claimed the creature was immortal. Gellert told me he accidentally destroyed him by drowning him in water, which the creature apparently could not stand. I was so happy to see him when he returned to England that I didn't understand how he destroyed his opponent by using very dark and very violent magic. Thus he became the master of the invincible wand."

"It was the first time he lied to me, Ariana."

"He had stolen the Elder Wand earlier from the wand maker, Gregorovitch, and I know not how Gregorovitch came to possess it, but that was the truth. Then he haunted the miserable half alive creature of its first and possibly last true owner and killed it like an animal, inventing stories of what this creature did."

"And I couldn't have followed him on his journey because I became your guardian and I couldn't leave you..."

"I'm sure your sacrifice had been tremendous," Ariana said with hatred.

"Please, don't interrupt me. I will be finished soon and then you can continue despising me all you want," Albus said in a deep voice. "It is good that you received this letter so that I can also finish this confession of my own. Long overdue as you said yourself."

Ariana stood up and paced in the circular office, her mind a jumble of thoughts, her heart telling her to gather her robes and leave Albus forever. _But if I leave, I will never know the whole truth_ , she said to herself. _What's the point in knowing it_ , whispered the inner voices, _you know enough to condemn him_. _Still, I want to know_ , she thought. This certainty silenced the voices of her fear, and she willed herself to sit down again, hands once again folded in front, blue eyes twinkling with mild curiosity.

"Please, Albus, go on," she said, "whatever you may still confess, cannot make your betrayal any worse to me than it is now. You were supposed to guard me after our parents died. And what have you done?"

"Gellert told me he could help you. He took me to St Mungos and demonstrated his new prowess with his new wand, treating several patients deemed incurable before. He still owned Vanna Prince McMillan's house and I agreed that he could take you there. We made the place unplottable so that no one could find it. We told everybody you died. Aberforth wouldn't believe us so we told him that the Nativity painting our father left to you was cursed with evil and that it took you with it in the unknown direction. We blamed father for your accident, we even called him a dark wizard as everyone else already did. If I had only known that the painting was a Veil of Death!"

"I've heard enough," said Ariana, green and broken-hearted. "Albus, you are a monster-"

"Yes! But here is the final part of my confession, something I've never told anyone. And that is how I turned into a monster that I am. You have to understand that Gellert treated me very differently than what he treated you. Ever since he met _you_ after our mother died, he started telling me that I was his brother _and more_. He wouldn't specify what he meant by more but he praised my knowledge on every occasion and matched every magical exploit of mine with a _passion_ of his own. He went everywhere with me and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what he wanted, or what I wanted. I have always been different from the boys in school, Ariana," Albus slowed down his monologue, as if every word he was saying was almost impossible to pronounce from shame.

"What do you mean?" asked Ariana, recognising for the first time in her brother the signs of emotional roller coaster Gellert could cause in a sane person.

"Well, I never paid any attention to girls, if you know what I mean. I didn't notice their existence as girls, they were keen spirits and I treated them as equal in magic, but I never noticed or commented on their hair, their eyes, other parts of their body that boys talked about, nothing of the sort. And then when Gellert wanted to take you away, he took me on an outing to the Great Lake of Hogwarts and declared in absolute serenity that I was his soul-mate. He said he couldn't live without me. And that is why he was willing to help me and assume upon himself the great burden of helping my hurt sister come back to her magical integrity."

Albus's eyes were twinkling with unshed tears, his voice so deep and so broken that it was barely audible, generating a rumbling echo from the stone walls and gargoyles of Hogwarts.

"I was a fool. I was a stupid idiot, Ariana, and I said yes. I don't blame you for hating me for it."

"Albus, did he, I mean did the two of you, I mean-" Ariana could not formulate her question as her eyes suddenly filled with disgust.

"No, Ariana, we've never been together, if that's what you are asking. And not for my lack of interest. Gellert flirted with me at every moment for 12 long years, and shamelessly since he met you, and my best guess is that he laughed behind my back whenever I was gone. You see, Gellert, he was entirely into girls. And he used me, a boy who was different, a wizard who was different, a man who was unaware of what was an essential part of his identity. Gellert used me to get what he wanted from the very beginning. You." Tears big as diamonds crawled from Albus's eyes at that point, and Ariana considered briefly how portraits should not have been able to cry.

"If you must hate me, Ariana, go on, do it. You are in your right. But please, please don't hate me for being a monster, hate me for being a fool!" said Albus in a voice of one waiting for the henchman's axe to fall upon his throat.

Ariana sipped the last bit of her tea, cold as steel. With iron grip on her emotions, she sought to understand, as if understanding was the only way out of the trap of hatred. And than she saw it, bright as a new day, the truth that her brother learned from his mistakes.

"That's why you believe so firmly that Harry Potter will vanquish the Dark Lord for having a power the Dark Lord does not possess, the power of love..." Ariana retorted unexpectedly and Albus's eyes widened.

"No one has ever understood that before..." he whispered through his tears.

"You didn't vanquish the most powerful Dark Lord of our times because you learned how evil he was, or because you hated what he did to me, or out of the duty to help the wizarding world, which was all on your mind, I have no doubt about that. You won only because you loved him so deeply, no matter what he did, that your love for him could move the mountains. And so could your magic, if you allowed yourself to call upon the sheer brute force and power of your love."

Albus was speechless, probably for the first time in his life, or death.

And Ariana simply concluded, "And Harry's capacity to love others, his friends, everyone, is perhaps even stronger than yours, Albus. If only half of the stories I heard about that boy are true, Merlin help Tom Riddle when the force of love that strong is released upon him!"

"I apologise for interrupting," whispered the portrait of Phineas Nigellus discreetly, the painted Ariana bent behind him in the frame, "but I've come back. Harry Potter and his friends just entered the castle, with my other portrait frame firmly in the Mudbl... I mean Muggle-born girl bag. It will start soon."

"What did you hear, Phineas?" asked Ariana.

"A little bit of what happened to Albus," the portrait replied wistfully with a playful wink. "But it's nothing I care to repeat to anyone, honestly, you have no idea how many such secrets we have in our family. Old uncle Sirius had this life-long friend, Aurelius, they were a legend together."

Ariana fought the simultaneous desire to weep and to laugh, trying to regain her own composure, lost irreparably somewhere in the middle of her conversation with her brother.

"I missed you, Phineas," she said, finally. "It's good to have you back."

"Can I see the letter?" asked the painted Ariana.

Real Ariana gave a questioning look to Albus, who just nodded his approval still unable to speak. The painted Ariana's face turned grim as the letter read itself again in Gellert's voice as if it announced the arrival of doom.

"I have to correct myself," said Phineas, with an expression full of complicity and knowledge "we can officially adopt both of you to the Black family upon re-examining your case in its entirety. I'm sure we can find you a suitable place on the family tree."

Painted Ariana hit Phineas over his head with the empty bowl of fruit depicted on the table in their shared portrait, urging him to stop the nonsense. Their bickering started waking up the other Headmasters, meaning that the effect of the miraculous Portrait Snoozing Gel wore off. Ariana smiled when she remembered how Severus developed it for similar occasions, joking he had to make his rather complicated life of a Death Eater at least a little bit easier.

"How did you know, Ariana?" Albus managed to ask in the middle of commotion.

Ariana remembered how she defeated Grindelwald's mush spell before falling into the Veil, when, for the first time in her life, her soul was going to burst from love.

"Because you're my brother," she replied without thinking.

Having spontaneously said that, Ariana decided it was time to check what was going on outside and let the crazy portraits deal with themselves. Eager to keep her best kept family secret a bit of a secret, she carefully scooped Grindelwald's last letter and stored it into the abysmally deep inner pockets of her robes where she used to hide Sirius's wand, wordlessly casting an _Obliviate_ in the direction of Phineas and painted Ariana.

When she was folding the parchment, she finally realized where the red colour of the letters came from. Gellert Grindelwald had written his Last Will and Testament in his own blood.

It was still not nearly enough to forget what Albus and Gellert did. Ariana caught herself hoping that one day she would be able to forgive them. The last thing Alphard needed was a mother with a soul poisoned by hatred in a world where his father was irreparably lost.

She made a few tentative steps down the spiral stairway of the Headmaster's office and stopped to give a look at the gargoyle at the entrance.

The castle brimmed with sound and a red jet of light came as far as the beginning of the stairs.

Ariana recalled all the bravery she didn't have, and hoped Val's spell would work lest Alphard become an orphan before he had any chance to meet his mother.


	21. The Choices of a Lizard and the Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where an old marriage rite is celebrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.

Bellatrix hid behind a painting of the one-eyed witch at the end of one of the secret passages leading to Hogwarts.

She found herself envying late Peter Pettigrew on his Animagus form, wishing she could transform in a rat or an even smaller animal herself. That way she could find Hermione Granger much faster.

Unfortunately, transfiguration was never Bella's forte. Her strong point had been the dark arts, not any defence against them. So she had to make do with the things she had known all her life.

It was very easy to fool the other Death Eaters and get separated from them in the heat of the battle, but there wasn't much time left to spare. She had to be present when the Dark Lord would call Potter out on a duel, if she wished to live, and she found that she wanted life for just a little bit longer.

It bothered her slightly to be obliged to send a stunner in direction of Remus Lupin, purely to get him out of her way, while Rodolphus, returned from South America, duelled Nymphadora. Lupin slumped to the ground as if she had used a Killing Curse, which was definitely not the case. In her new confused state of mind, she began to grasp what her niece had seen in the wizard, an animal once a month, who nevertheless defended her fiercely from Bella, not knowing that the dark witch was merely passing by, on a mission of her own.

 _Perhaps some werewolves are more reliable than certain Dark Lords or former pure blooded husbands_ , Bella mused. She hoped that she was right for Nymphadora's sake. Besides, Andromeda's daughter was for all practical purposes also a _Black;_  she _was_ going to defeat Rodolphus single-handedly, without meddling from her half breed husband or her Death Eater aunt.

A piece of soft, red cotton protruded under her Death Eater robes, a consequence of skirmish and running, she reckoned. Readjusting her state of dress, she still failed to understand why she felt compelled to steal Ariana Dumbledore's T-shirt, when the house elves changed her into a clean and warm night gown after the delivery. Bellatrix was cleaning the tiny red garment with magic, hoping Aunt Walburga was sound asleep and wouldn't catch her doing the elves' job. Unexpectedly, she fell in love with the title "Bad Excuses" on it, not caring if it was a Muggle thing in the slightest. In the lonely nights in Malfoy Manor, she thought its colour could revive the smell of a young man's hair, cursing herself for turning into a pervert, and not only a killer, in her forties.

But then one day Harry Potter broke into her vault in Gringgots, and Voldemort started throwing killing curses at them all, not caring whom he would hit among his loyal Death Eaters. Lucius would have been dead if Bella didn't drag him out of the room on time, and for some reason, the red T-shirt had brought her luck on that day. Normally, she would never have been faster than the Dark Lord's spell.

When the Dark Lord ordered them to march on Hogwarts to their final victory, Bella came to terms with herself and with what she wanted in life, donned the T-shirt and hoped for the best.

And it worked again, because in a flash of pure luck Bellatrix noticed a patch of red hair in the passage, and the bushy hair appeared immediately in tow.

 _There they are,_ she almost danced with joy, releasing the Essence of Fast Fainting in the corridor and sprinting towards the girl, sprawled on the floor.

" _Retracto,"_ she whispered, summoning all the spells she used torturing Hermione in the Malfoy Manor back to herself. It took all her forces not to waver as the essence of them made it back into her own soul. The pain was strong, but she could handle it, for a while, pondering for the first time rationally the kind and the size of darkness she possessed on the inside, at her disposal to hurt other people. It was huge and unwavering, abysmal, a well of darkness where there should be light, an evil in the soul meant to be immortal, ruined by her own actions.

The pain she was enduring was nothing in comparison to a terrible certainty that the Dark Lord she had adored with all her being despised her and thought of her as a usable fool. Satisfied with the results of her experimental curse-retrieving hex, if her pain was any measure of its success, she used her Legilimency skills to sift through the surface of Hermione's unconscious mind and found it unburdened from the torture experience. For a second she considered taking back her wand and leave the Mudblood the one from Aunt Walburga, but then, her aunt may have enchanted it to hurt Mudbloods if they ever touched it, and Bella was quite done with causing pain.

Turning into purple and black fumes, she laughed hysterically and stormed out of the corridor to join Voldemort, but not before administering a few drops of Instant Enervating Tonic of her own production (yes, she did learn something from Severus, although she would never admit that to him) to the eye lashes of a girl and her red haired freckled friend, finally allowing the sight of him to stir some rather fresh and bitter-sweet memories in the black pit of Bellatrix' soul.

Dark purple fumes went forward, remembering a too young red haired man whom they did not deserve, but who could have loved them dearly, had the situation been a little bit different.

 _Too late for that_ , the fumes thought, avoiding the battle on the way to the Forbidden Forest, looking for a few precious moments of solitude before gracing Voldemort's presence once again, in a role of his most devoted Death Eater.

But that day in Hogwarts was not meant to bring peace to any magical being.

As Bellatrix materialised among the centenary trees, a wave of light, heat and hot metal crashed into her and she ducked just on time before she would be first squashed, and then roasted. From the burning ruins of a strange metallic device with two wheels rose a six-foot tall, crystal-coloured figure, muttering curses and trying to apply inexpert healing spells to his forearms, which seemed to have been severely injured.

"At least her transfiguration of matter into spirit works. I can't wait to tell her that!" whispered the apparition with strange passion, oblivious to his surroundings, among various complaints in a juicy language.

Bellatrix' heart nearly stopped at the sight of the ghost of her cousin Sirius. He was supposed to be in the past, not dead, not dead… Not killed by her hand.

She came forward to him and fell on her knees. The ghost finally noticed her, sparing her a brief look full of misplaced prudish pride so typical of her cousin as if she were a weed to be eradicated. Determined, she gripped her wand, aimed at his chest, and started uttering the extremely dark incantation she devised, which would draw back the killing curse she used on Sirius back to herself.

" _Expelliarmus_!" the ghost roared and Aunt Walburga's wand left her hands falling to the grass, dry and yellow from the lack of rain. "I knew that you were quite mad Bella, but not that you were suicidal. Taking back your own Unforgivables to yourself?! Are you having love life difficulties? Rodolphus finally saw the light and abandoned you?"

"Sirius! Listen…"

"Sorry, Bella, it's really nice to see you again but I'm way too busy to waste my time on you right now. Stupefy!"

Those were the last words she heard before passing out for a short period of time.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

When she regained consciousness by sheer force of her will, all that was left of Sirius was scorched grass, and some damaged skin on her own arms, for the disarming spell sent her into the burning thicket where her cousin her landed. She thought cynically how Hogwarts should award her a medal for accidentally quenching a disastrous fire with her body, while she crawled towards the encampment of the Death Eaters for what felt like hours, fighting the effects of the stunning spell cast on her with fierce strength and revulsion.

 _Oh, if I could only lay down and get some rest_ , she thought.

In the last few days, she started getting tired for no reason at all, and the magical Muggle T-shirt helped her to avoid falling asleep, without having to ingest disgusting potions, during the interminable evenings where the followers of the Dark Lord praised his ever growing power. The night before they were ordered to attack Hogwarts, she believed that not even the Cruciatus curse would have kept her awake.

She barely made it back to the inner circle on time before Voldemort showed up and spoke his ultimatum to Hogwarts. In one hour they would deliver him Harry Potter or he would kill them all. Well, actually, they were going to kill them all for Him. The idea of indistinct murder, which used to make her happy and alert, only served to enhance Bella's profound desire to sleep.

Her knees and elbows were a bloody mess under her robes from her slithering journey through the woods, and she could not use a standard healing spell because for once she didn't want to draw any undue attention to herself. A crazy giggle left her mouth but luckily that was precisely what everybody expected from her, so everything was fine.

 _I am not finished yet_ , she thought, _I have to live through this to complete what I have started because it's the only thing that makes sense_. She forgot to question herself on when and how it came to be that she started actually caring about things in life making any sense at all.

When the Boy Who Lived died, she wasn't surprised, because she never expected any other outcome, did she? She should have known best of all that the evil was simply too strong. Still, the fall of the Dark Lord made her heart jump with the sense of foreboding, and she played her part of a loving servant easier than ever, parroting her breathless concern for others to see.

So when Voldemort redressed himself, and when her sister Narcissa went to check, and confirmed that the boy was dead, Bellatrix noticed an imperceptible change in her demeanour. Then, she knew for sure that either Narcissa felt genuinely sorry for the boy, and it would not do to show that in the present company, or there was something fishy about the boy's death. And as attacks of authentic compassion were not Narcissa's cup of tea, something unexpected must have occurred _again_ , as it had a tendency to, whenever Tom Riddle met Harry Potter.

Curious about what would happen next and feeling totally independent for the first time since she married Rodolphus, Bellatrix walked slowly to the castle with the other Death Eaters, through the fields of dry yellow grass, forgetting her bleeding wounds in anticipation of what was to come.

xxxxxxxxxx

Severus Snape was losing blood fast in the Shrieking Shack after Voldemort's snake bit him deeply in the neck.

A proper end for a Slytherin, that, worthy of a column in the Daily Prophet if anyone was left alive to write one when the day was over.

In the moment when he realized what Voldemort was going to order Nagini to do, he struggled hopelessly against her, believing everything was in vain. He had not been strong enough to give Albus's message to Harry Potter, only to trick his old Lord that he was now the true master of the Elder Wand.

 _Good gracious, I was lucky Harry Potter was here, always at the place he is not supposed to be_ , Snape thought, felling humiliated and accomplished at the same time because he finally managed to give his most deeply hidden memories to the Boy Who Might Die Soon, sparing himself the pain and the shame of retelling them in person, and in so many words…

And he started to feel tremendously pleased for having _completely_ outsmarted Voldemort at the very end. Just like he always wanted.

Before the children left, he begged inwardly for being allowed to conserve a minimum of dignity in death, so he closed his eyes and counted to ten, clearing his mind of all considerations, waiting to be alone to die. There was nothing left for him to do, and he thought he wanted to let go.

He felt weaker, but essentially the same. He counted again, this time to 20.

Unchanged in weakness, not getting any worse or better, Snape winced when the gaping wound on his neck started causing him blunt pain. He counted to 30.

Feeling a pool of blood cooling down his skin and his robes, Snape realised he was still alive and alone. Suddenly no self-imposed barrier could hold back the unwanted eruption of his thoughts. Paralysed, he could not move. A secondary effect of Nagini's venom, he guessed. What the hell was happening to him? He remembered his life in excruciating detail and he found that now, when it was too late, the bottom line was, he was most definitely _not_ ready to die.

Cold fear burned in his throat when he heard a sound of gentle rolling of a giant body in the outside corridor. The snake was approaching again, coiling on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. _Once was enough_ , he thought, opening his eyes, decided to face his doom like a man. If he was one, of which he had never been too sure ever since he started his association with the Dark Lord.

The snake stopped and raised her head up high, hissing and judging her prey.

Severus's heart almost halted, pounding madly, like a drum.

And then the snake flickered at the edges in a vaguely familiar way, hinting that the reality was all wrong.

Shifted.

The snake diminished in size until she turned into a much smaller animal. Severus sensed that the bite holes proportionally decreased in size, dwindling into two small dots, which oozed only an almost imperceptible trickle of blood.

 _A glamour just wore off,_ he analysed, _such a simple spell, not demanding almost any power, and yet so efficient to fool wizards._

He wished he could see the real extent of his injuries and estimate his chances for survival. The feeling of wetness on his robes nearly disappeared, but he could still not move or talk.

And the feeling of weakness increased, so he may have been dying after all, only at a slower pace.

 _But what the hell bit me if Nagini did not?_ Snape wondered.

The familiar, small grey lizard with tiny, yellow, spiked dots crawled towards Severus, who lay like an orphan child abandoned in the corner of the dark shabby room. A slender figure materialised, all clad in black, thick brown curls caressing her face. The pin was gone, the hair dishevelled, and Val an image of a witch of old; a siren with shining shadows in her hair.

Soon, a pair of warm arms grabbed Severus and hugged him fiercely. His blood trickled slowly, staining her clothing as well. Severus wondered which T-shirt he felt she was wearing, camouflaged in starkness of her imaginary robes.

"I couldn't let him. I'm so sorry. I'm as selfish as my mother must have been. But I couldn't let him kill you!"

Snape had no idea what Val was rambling about. He tried to open his mouth but only a strange blurb came out.

"Shhhhh. Don't talk for once. It was not Nagini, but it was still a bite. I had to bite you to make it look real. Otherwise he wouldn't have left. He'd do it himself as he did for my father."

Severus puzzled face must have looked priceless as Val proceeded with bandaging his neck wound, using a clean portion of black textile she tore off her robes, which were apparently somewhat real for the occasion.

He was even more uncertain about his fate when he realized that one of the best magic healers he had known did not, or perhaps could not, use magic to close his wound.

"But that's not all", Val continued, between stressed and extremely tired. "That's not all that happened, not nearly."

"As soon as you disappeared I knew I had to find you. And I knew you would have gone to Him. So I went out on the grounds when the battle began. I was wandering around, hidden in the realm I created with all the sleeping souls, looking for disturbances crossing the dimensions, for damaged souls. The biggest one came from the Shrieking Shack. I came here in a hurry and first I found only the snake, alone in a transparent cage, waiting for her Master…"

Val paused as if it was painful, or shameful to continue.

Dust flew in the air and two mice ran away, amazed at the stupidity of humans, who once gain invaded their living space conquered with difficulty, instead of going back to their luxurious dwellings elsewhere, full of riches and foods where rodents were not permitted.

"How do you think I stole Voldemort's memories for Bellatrix?" Val said finally.

"I never told you, did I? I _was_ the snake, Severus. Or rather, what all of you saw as a snake was me in my poor little Animagus form, a cold-blooded creature from the warm, fertile lands so far away from here that I might never live to see them again."

"I used a paralysing concoction on the real Nagini in Malfoy Manor to keep her away. I shifted my Animagus form into another dimension and I showed all of you Nagini in her crawling splendour... The same way I can change my clothing to look like proper robes when I don't play the piano in our pub. Luckily lizards and snakes are zoologically related and size is only a matter of perception, so the shift didn't cost me that much energy…"

Manifestly lacking the strength to go on, she still somehow managed to go on talking, as if there was no other way out of their situation but the truth. "And the very first time that Voldemort caught me I threw myself after the snake, in order to snitch some scales which the real Nagini shed when she passed. Back in my shop I brewed several portions of Polyjuice Potion with her scales, upon a sudden attack of inspiration, I never knew why..."

Green meadow invaded Snape's mind when she stopped talking again. She must have done it almost unconsciously, to calm her beating heart and _her_ dying man. The notion he was _hers_ was ridiculous, yet it left a strong imprint on the potions master.

Severus looked deep into Val's crystal coloured eyes, and blurbed out a legilimency spell, lucky for still holding his wand in a stony grasp of his paralyzed hands.

Soon he could address her in his thoughts. " _Let me in."_

Val smiled: "I always did. I can hear you, Severus."

" _You are crazy, Voldemort could have sensed the deception! You rolled around his neck! He could have killed you."_

"Well, he didn't. Animals have a much simpler mind. And that makes them rather resistant and also uninteresting for Legilimency of any kind. There's just not so much to read. Even when a part of the soul of the Dark Lord is stored in them…" Val said bitterly.

" _What?"_

"Nagini is also a Horcrux, Severus. When I found her today, here in the Shrieking Shack, I moved her to a totally new dimension where she was alone and apart from everyone else. And when I do that, I sense the truth of things. I felt the shadow that was in her, the imprint of the Dark Lord," Val shivered as his first year students would in fear of Snape; and it was the first time that Severus saw Val afraid of Voldemort.

"I almost felt sorry for the snake and then I passed out of exhaustion. I don't know what gave me the force to maintain the shift for the snake, and I knew she would finish me off if I wavered."

"Taking Nagini's place in the crystal cage as a lizard was the first thing I did when I regained my senses, because I could not get into it my human form. It's amazing how many magical protection spells are not designed to provide defence against the illegal Animagi," Val observed with a tiny malicious grin, which fitted her far better than fear if anyone asked Severus.

"And if I shifted any more dimensions to get rid of the real cage and conjure a new one, why, with what I pulled today in Hogwarts, and after, with the real snake, a new spell would have probably killed me," Val concluded in all simplicity.

Severus looked into Val's eyes, fighting to stay awake and resisting the urge to lay down and sleep; unsure of what to expect, content to finally hear the truth at the very end.

"So I swallowed the Polyjuice Potion, as a lizard", Val stuttered. "It had a pretty disgusting taste, mark my word, and I changed into Nagini, directly from my Animagus form."

"I bit you, Severus. I'm so sorry! I am so dreadfully sorry!" Val completely freaked out at her last admission, and Snape could not understand her distress. If Nagini didn't bite him, he'd live, wouldn't he?

"And while my lizard's bite is way less devastating in physical terms, it's a ten times more potent poison than Nagini's!"

 _Good for fighting the Acromantulas,_ he told her through Legilimency, smirking and struggling not to faint.

He would stay awake only a little bit longer, to observe a good looking woman on the verge of crying over his destiny; a tribute he wasn't sure he deserved, but it flattered his ego nonetheless.

"I as good as killed you," she whimpered, in a sound totally not befitting Val, his formerly fearless associate, who served beers at the Death Eaters party posing as a Muggle without flinching; the witch who would pull his hair worse than all the Marauders put together.

"And there is no known cure against my poison!" Val wept bitterly, and Severus enjoyed seeing her tears, as if they were a most passionate declaration of love.

His black gaze did not leave her for a second, but his desire to rest started turning all-pervasive.

" _Do it again. I'd rather like it if it was you,"_ he whispered insistently in her head.

"What are you talking about, Severus?"

" _Bite me, for Merlin's sake. Finish what you have started."_

"What?"

" _Harry is also a Horcrux. He also has to die and I sent him to his death on Dumbledore´s orders. I want to go as well."_

"You and Albus and your cursed secrets! No wonder Ariana hates him!" Val exclaimed fiercely and hugged Severus tighter, until he turned almost blue from too getting too little air.

He also suffered from the most unpleasant sensation that his throat may have started swelling.

"Severus, listen to me very carefully. I think we have to wait until the battle is over to see what happens to Harry. Think of all that has happened since we met. You thought what I did was impossible, dimension shifting. Maybe there are more impossible things going on that we haven't heard about. Knowing Albus, he has kept secrets from everybody. Or he just plain doesn't know. No one knows what will happen. Not for sure."

Snape's eyes looked well and truly dead, more tired than the world could get from its incessant turning.

" _Please, Val,"_ he begged her. _"I cannot do it myself. Transform. Swallow more Polyjuice if that'll make it go easier for you. Whatever. Give me another bite. My mission is over. I want to have some peace. For the first time I understand how Albus must have felt when he… when he asked me…"_

Totally bewildered, Val invaded Severus's mind-scape with the even greener meadow of her own, and shushed his mind talk with a loud sound of the twittering of birds.

"You are lying," she said, understanding at last, "I don't know if you're lying to me or to yourself. You don't want to die."

There was no answer to her statement, real or through legilimency. She nervously flicked an untamed curl of brown hair around her fingers; a silvery gleam of it she tried so hard to hide from people clearly shone visibly in the dim light of the surroundings.

"A bite you said," she stated with her eyes getting darker and narrower, almost like snake slits.

But their colour remained blue, not red, or green, and they bore him no ill will.

Snape closed his eyes in surrender and felt a sensation on one side of his neck, just above his shoulder. It was something that no one had done before, not to him, something he read about in readers' confessions of their intimate exploits in adult section of Witch Weakly that he was particularly ashamed of consulting. Well… The sensation trailed up from his neck towards his right ear, gently, bit by bit. He then felt it on his cheek right before a pair of warm lips briefly teased his, only to squeeze his lower lip gently between her own in the end.

"Would this qualify?" Val asked softly.

Opening his eyes again, Severus could not focus on her face, dangerously too close to his, too close for him to feel comfortable. He didn't want to allow people in his personal space, yet there she was, undeterred by him since the first day when he met her.

Later he had never known if it was due to her kiss or because enough time had passed since the lizard bite, but feeling returned to his limbs just then and the most natural thing to do was to pull her in his arms and hold her tight, forgetting the progress of the swelling inside his throat.

He decided to stay awake as long as he could and savour his parting gift from life.

"There is this one thing," she said, "but it may not even work, and so much is at stake."

She disentangled herself from his embrace and paced the room as if she needed space to make a difficult decision.

He felt her absence acutely, and the feeling of cold where her body had been kept him awake for another moment, cutting through the urge to give in to slumber that would mean his end.

She was _beautiful._

And she had always hidden it from him, her real soft, rounded face and her colourful hair.

The realization struck him that even with her stern face and hair up, and with her body buried in the black robes more old-fashioned than Minerva's, she would have been equally beautiful to him.

And he mostly managed to arrive at important realizations in life only when it was too late to act upon them.

"I will try something now," she said, tentatively, as if she had reached a decision she was not particularly happy with.

"You lost too much blood and I have to do this now if there's any chance for this to work. But just in case that your overly analytical minds will be having second thoughts, I'm going to spell it out for you. Your injury is not the only reason I'm doing it, and if it was, than the ritual wouldn't work anyway," Val explained.

She squatted in front of him and traced his eyebrows with both of her thumbs, as she had already done before in a broom cupboard. But this time he could not dismiss it as a stupid coincidence not meaning a thing, because she also kissed him right above his eyes, first above his right eye and then above his left eye, causing the bright light of revelation to shine on his sallow face.

" _You are not?!…_ _You can't be serious!"_ he froze when he recognised what ritual she had just started.

"Yes, I am, Severus, watch me." Val took his right hand with her left hand and tied another torn piece of her black robes around both of their hands in a tight knot, patiently waiting for his reaction. "Your turn. Take it or leave it."

The silence was long and too loud with things unsaid. The wooden floor beams cracked as Val sank down on them closing her eyes in disappointment. Her private thoughts became audible to Snape through the green meadow of her mind.

 _Maybe he doesn't know the ritual_ , she thought almost aloud in her despair, _or worse, he does, as he always knows everything from the books and he doesn't want us to…_

xxxxxxxxxxx

Her eyes still closed Val felt a tentative male thumb tracing her right eyebrow and then her left eyebrow, a kiss above her right eye and then above her left eye. Severus took her right hand with his left hand, and slowly folded both of them together on the top of the knot of hands Val had already made between them.

When Val finally opened her eyes, Severus was mutely staring at her. His eyes wore no expression at all, they only trespassed into hers, endlessly.

 _So this is how it happens, father_ , Val thought, _it is every bit as beautiful as I thought it should be._

For at that very moment, Val Peverell gave up her dimension shifting gift as it was written of old.

When an old ritual marriage bond that used to be common among the wizards was initiated by a dimension shifter, losing one's gift was the price to pay, and the vow could be made only if they loved someone deeply and were loved in return.

The main reason for this, as Val had learned, was that true love tolerated no lies. No deception or tricks, well intended or not, no running away, or evil jokes Val was so fond of.

The bond could not be unmade. One would live as long as the other one survived, no matter how badly injured one of the partners might be. Until one day they would pass together to the other side, too tired to resist the everlasting challenge of life.

That, at least, was the theory, which remained to be tested against the working of a rare poison with no known cure.

Once that she had done it, Val felt strangely at ease and guiltless, where a few minutes ago she nearly succumbed under the burden of obligation to keep everyone safe for the duration of the battle, which accidentally also meant leaving Severus to die.

 _I did what I could,_ she thought. _So did he. No one could ask of us to do more, could they? We all have our fair chance now, to live or to die. Me and him by our bond, and all the others by their own actions._

She felt very cold, just like her Animagus in the British climate, and a desire to rest became omnipotent. Severus was already dozing from what she could tell, his neck somewhat swollen and unhealthy green in colour. The Legilimency spell was severed.

She untied their hands and sat next to him, making him lean on her, leaning on him in equal measure, trying to make them both comfortable as her healer's instincts required, and failing miserably.

The dimension shifting spell Val cast to protect Hogwarts continued running in the void, losing its point of origin. The only thing keeping it in place was the amplifying power of the Veil of Death. Val hoped before falling asleep that Severus didn't know of this particular aspect of what they did, for the losing of the gift was one of the few best kept secrets of the wizards and witches of her kind.

It was selfish, but she couldn't help it.

She didn't want him to blame himself for her choices, and to jeopardize his uncertain recovery with knowledge that if anything went wrong, and if the current dimension shift was broken, there would be no magical protection left for a single living being in Hogwarts.

And the battle was far from over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are no such poisonous lizards in Brazil. This fact is purely an invention of mine. Visually, I imagine Val's Animagus as either Enyalioides laticeps or Enyalioides palpebralis, or anything else you like.


	22. Finding the Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius reunites with Harry

Sirius would never be able to explain how wonderful he felt when he saw again in distance the turrets and the towers of Hogwarts.

His heart became big as a balloon, swerving to the sky, just like when he was eleven and faced them for the very first time; a way out from home, to a better world.

Ariana had been with Snape in Sirius' waking dreams of her in the past, just before Sirius and Ariana ended up together on the ball in Malfoy Manor. Snape worked in Hogwarts, so Sirius must have come at least to the right place to find her. He still didn't dare to believe that he arrived at the right time. To hit the target twice seemed like a way too high expectation from an old-timer, continental model of a flying motorcycle bumping through time.

The appearance of cousin Bella as deranged as ever greatly increased his hopes. If only Bellatrix had not been doing something so atypical like calling back her own killing curse on herself, using an even darker retracting spell capable of ending her pitiful existence quite efficiently. It made Sirius doubt that while he was maybe in the correct time, he may have landed in a totally different universe.

Cold fear filled his heart next. If Bella was in Hogwarts, Voldemort was not far, and that meant everybody he ever cared about was in danger, and Harry first of all.

With these equations in mind, he remained flying low not to be seen, close to the ground and among the trees of the Forbidden Forest, until the gate of Hogwarts almost came into view.

Before he could reach it the world changed. The motorbike was gone and Sirius was standing in a dim and greenish empty space, as one in a circle of human figures. There were James, Lily and… Remus…? All like shadows in a gloomy land. He knew it in his soul: they were all dead. The moment of final truth had arrived.

"You were so brave," the transparent Lily said to Harry in the middle of the circle.

Sirius looked at his hands and realised he had also become phantom-like again, despite not using any magic to transform himself into a ghost. A thin veil of grey and green mist hovered all around him, sticking to his skin. His hands were unblemished and he also seemed to be wearing the same clothing like when he had first fallen through the Veil. Anguished and disappointed that his quest was nothing but a lovely dream, he barely managed to squeeze a reply to Harry about dying not being that bad. _It is the truth, wasn't it?_

Sirius couldn't see his own face in the forest, but on the inside he was bursting from energy. He felt healthy and alive just like when he saw himself as a handsome stranger in wine red robes in the mirror of the Malfoy Manor; when he _danced_ with Ariana, and realized his body had finally recovered from the ordeal of Azkaban, even if his spirit may never follow suit. Some scars would remain forever, Sirius knew.

 _Dying wasn't that bad for me,_ he thought. _Except that I had a beautiful dream_ , _and I believed it was real, for a while._ _A dream of a new life, of time travel and stars. Merlin, I even imagined not all of my ancestors were that evil!_

Harry told Remus he was so sorry that Remus died just after he had a son.

 _A son?_ thought Sirius, happy for his friend, yet envying him for having something Sirius never had, or wanted, to be perfectly honest about it. Remus told Harry it was all right, but Sirius found it was not. Remus would have been the best Dad ever, and he deserved that chance.

"We will be with you all the way" his parents promised Harry. Sirius was propelled to walk after his godson through the Forbidden Forest as a good spirit of protection against the dementing cold. The Dementors had no effect on him, confirming the fact that he must have been well and truly dead this time, despite the uncanny feeling of being more alive than ever before.

He was obliged to walk as Harry's shield and guardian by a force he could not control. He'd do it anyway, he knew, yet the fact remained that his body did not move of his own volition, but under the influence of a power he didn't understand. They stayed close to Harry until they reached a clearing in the woods and heard the whisper of two living Death Eaters among the solid murmur of the trees.

Harry faded away, and Sirius stood in shock, not knowing what to think, when dignified apparitions of James and Lily dragged an immobile Remus into his arms, gently patting Sirius on his back.

"Mate," James said, "you have to take him."

"Good to see you again Sirius," Lily said. "We know it wasn't your fault."

"Remember," James said, "what is the last enemy to be defeated?"

"Death," Sirius whispered.

"That's right, Sirius," said Lily and kissed him on his cheek. "Go now."

"We'll see you both soon enough," James added softly.

Then, in an instant they were gone, and Sirius was standing next to a time traveling motorcycle, on a cold morning of a new day.

The wind was blowing. The burns on his forearms hurt like hell. Soft wisps of perfectly grey clouds were sailing on the sky above Hogwarts and the green haze was gone. He was holding an unconscious Remus, who barely stirred in his arms.

"What's your son's name?" he asked him, just to say something.

"Teddy," Remus said, heavy and warm, sinking in a deep completely unnatural slumber.

"And the lucky mother?" Sirius asked, smiling.

"Dora…" Remus called out in pain.

"Tonks?" asked Sirius.

But his friend the werewolf stopped moving, as if a particularly devious dark curse had hit him. His chest didn't move to draw breath, even if he still seemed to be, above all hopes, in life.

The joy Sirius felt when the cold breeze touched his cheek in place of the dim emptiness, was slowly replaced by dread one more time, when he came closer to the castle gates. The imposing iron bars were thoroughly defeated, torn apart and fallen. Ominous black dust floated in the air, obstructing the view to what lay behind.

Sirius wished Ariana and he could have stayed happily in the past and ignored the outside world. But even as he did so he knew it would have never been enough. The calling to do his part and to fight for something worth fighting for, in every way he knew how, had always been too strong in Sirius, much more resilient than his personal dreams of pleasant insignificant life where nobody knew his name, or the cursed one of his family. And he knew of many ways to fight, always among the best in all magical disciplines he actually applied himself to; rather than dismissing the effort in sheer arrogance, or act of rebellion against any authority he didn't approve of.

Careful not to let Remus fall, Sirius gathered his courage and walked forward, decided not to fear the future.

It could not be worse than his past.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After the most recent family revelations of what motivated Albus to leave her in Gellert's care, Ariana was a nervous wreck. She felt perfectly sick from contemplating all the suffering that could have been avoided if only Gellert had been a better man, or if Albus didn't love him.

 _Where do I find forgiveness?_ she kept on asking herself. _T_ _here has to be a way._

What was it to her now, that Gellert abused her, or that Albus let her be imprisoned for 12 years thinking it was the best for her? And now they were both dead and she wasn't, not in reality, or not yet, if she was to believe her recent readings on the properties of the Veil of Death in the solitude of the Grimmauld Place 12, in the rare moments when baby Alphard was sleeping. Whatever the Veil did was only temporary, and the effects were not real.

 _Would I appreciate my new life here as much as I do if I didn't have to bear the burden of my past?_ she asked herself and she didn't know the answer.

The atmosphere in Headmaster's office was suffocating her. Gellert's will written in blood lay heavy on her soul as a fresh cut that didn't have time to heal. Ariana had to go out and get some air even if it wasn't a particularly fresh one, but rather saturated with unhealthy fumes of mortal hexes. She was grateful for the disturbance in Hogwarts that interrupted her personal suffering at least in part. The appearance of her tall ghost form soon moved in the corridors, trying to evaluate what was happening and who may be winning, searching for a measure of peace. Although she didn't believe she would ever find it, deserving as she was of punishment for the terrible violence she had committed on purpose as a child and a young girl.

 _Mother,_ she called in her mind, _will you ever forgive me? How can I ask it of you when I can't forgive Albus, and he, at least, left me to live._

Gliding through the halls, she started to worry about the safety of her son whom she left in Grimmauld Place with a few somewhat unreliable characters as baby-sitters. Knowing Aberforth, he would have joined the battle, and even Kreacher was not to be trusted in that regard as he harboured rather revolutionary thoughts for a house elf of late. And the third person, well, she'd rather not think about that at all.

When Ariana succeeded to force her thoughts back to the semblance of order, she noticed that while the Dumbledores were digesting their troubled past all over again, the clash between the school and the Death Eaters took full swing all over Hogwarts. Their lord and master was nowhere to be seen.

One of the younger students flew into the corridor she was haunting like a broken twig, and fell dead at her feet, holding a small camera in his hands.

 _Colin Creevy_ , she thought, shocked, observing the tiny body.

Ariana checked his wand for previous spells with the conclusion that he tried to disarm his most likely hooded opponent a second too slow. A look at the last picture hanging out of his Muggle camera revealed a face of John Dawlish, the Auror, wearing Death Eater's robes.

Aberforth's sister started to cry. Colin Creevy died gathering proof of treason from someone who swore to protect the wizarding community from the dark magic, and not the other way around.

Colin's death felt… real... Too real to be an illusion.

He was unnaturally cold. Ariana was certain that he did die even if her rational mind tried to tell her that this should not be possible, and that there was hope. Colin's soul was whole, and the dimension shift was in place, wasn't it?

Horrified, Ariana understood Val's dimension spell must have been failing and she could not fathom why. At times like that she hated magic and the imprecision it brought. You could never know all the effects of what you did. Ariana wondered if that was the basic condition of the world and if Muggles felt the same about what they did. She zoomed around the entire castle as fast as she could without getting corporeal, looking for Val who was nowhere to be found. Another student was shouting in pain, and it looked _real, too real to be a lie_. _Val, if only you knew,_ she thought, _you wouldn't let this happen even if you hate me because of Severus. And he likes you, not me. Where are you, Val?_

There was no answer, real or imaginary. There usually wasn't one in life.

Ariana blamed herself for her prolonged maternity absence. She should have asked Severus for details about the defences of Hogwarts. Instead, she'd just kicked him out of the way in order to selfishly proceed with learning the truth about her brother's actions 70 years in the past. _The Veil_ , she remembered, _they somehow hooked the protective spell to the accursed thing._

The tapestry of Barnabas the Great looked grey and unfriendly. The nearby door to the Room of Requirement opened immediately in front of Ariana, showing a pile of textiles on the pale yellow stone floor mixed with broken parts of candle holders.

 _My room,_ she remembered, , _my prison. The one I shared with Sirius,._

She didn't missing at all the fire spitting dragon heads, which were luckily not the part of what she seemed to require the most. Sirius's brotherly embraces in an improvised bed they shared flashed before her mind, and how they developed into something wonderful and terrible between them when baby Alphard was conceived.

There was no one, wise or not, who could advise Ariana on what to do next and something had to be done really soon, or the death toll of the too young and too innocent would rise to the heights unprecedented in known wizarding history ever since unfortunate Lyra Black killed off half of her family for the crimes only some of them committed. Ariana wondered if Sirius knew the entire legend of Lyra and what he thought about it, if he did.

The Veil was fortunately still in the room, the tattered curtain dangling ominously in the non-existent wind.

Ariana hoped that only she could see the Veil and not all students susceptible to wish for a refuge during the fight for the survival of Hogwarts.

 _The dimension shift, the spell,_ she thought. It was there and she could feel it, she could sense that Val cast it well. The magic was vibrating. And if that was not enough, Val's wand, shot as an arrow in the middle of the practice target, protruded from the middle of the ragged curtain as a mute sign. Ariana realised she had to find a way to increase the power in order to make the spell last long enough, if Val was gone for whatever reason.

She refused to think of the very real possibility that the Death Eaters could have killed Val and that she might be gone for good. Ariana could see no other reason for Val to disappear in the thick of things. She had known her for a year, jealous and prone to provoke people who may or may have not deserved it, but never a coward.

Ariana remained shaky and wobbly, but she had ran out of tears.

The thought of Gellert's will and of her destroyed family past foremost on her mind, she made a promise to herself. _When all this is over, I'm going to cry my soul out for all the wrongs past and present_.

Consolation would come, some day, but at that moment she had to find a way to boost the spell because there was no one else around capable of doing it.

 _There simply isn't anyone else, capable or not, end of discussion,_ she rightfully concluded.

The Dumbledores have been known for the crude power of their magic for centuries just like the Blacks for their interest in the dark arts. For the first time in her life Ariana was glad she still lacked control over her magic. It made her more dangerous, but also stronger. And this time she was determined that, if anybody had to be hurt while she was using her unstable surges of magical energy, it was going to be her.

Val's wand pierced the Veil, buried deep in its black heart. The whispers she'd heard before, when it took her to a new era, were silent. The familiar curtain looked inhospitable and as if it meant serious trouble to anyone who would dare disturb it.

 _Did it take you now, Val?_ Ariana thought. _Did you hear it whisper? Where did you go and where is Severus?_

Forcing herself to think logically, Ariana realised that most wand using magical folk directed their wand forward when casting a spell. So most probably if Val's wand was stuck in the Veil, she was not in it, she had only left her wand there. Ariana tried to pull it out or move it, but it wouldn't budge from its place. Her attemptes caused a strange tremor all over the Room of Requirement as if an earthquake was going to swallow Hogwarts.

 _This is not it_ , Ariana thought, _if I forcefully remove the wand I will interrupt the spell._

And a wizard had not yet been born who would bend the will of the Veil of Death to his own, according to learned scrolls on dark magic, neatly arranged on shelves of a strange looking and even worse smelling mouldy kitchen cupboard in the Black family house. She had discovered it in the remote and unused part of the library and it felt like a long lost friend.

Ariana devised a different procedure, more to her own fashion of a wandless magic user.

 _It's in the heart_ , she thought, _the power to end all evil._

"Alphard, please forgive me," she spoke to the thin air of the dusty room, not smelling of sea as it should. The undeniable fact ruined the illusion she was in the place of her captivity and her short lasting happiness. "Maybe your Dad will find his way back to you, against all odds."

She thought of Colin Creevy when she arranged her makeshift bed in front of the Veil so that her head would face the small dirty window overlooking the sea, which would be right behind the Veil if its surface had been transparent. She decided to put her legs into the Veil to try to tap in its manifest power. It was the best she could do.

She crossed her hands over her heart, lowering her long body to the floor, and stretched her feet carefully towards the Veil. Inch by inch and forward they went until she channelled all her magic forward towards the curtain and her toes were nearly touching it.

 _This should better work_ , she thought, not thinking for a second about a risk to herself and only about what she wanted to achieve; _that no one else should die like Colin Creevy did..._

"And I am not a wizard," the hollow echo of her voice gained thundering power when she stated her conclusion to the ancient walls of Hogwarts. "I'm a witch!"

It seemed like her words woke up the Veil. The voices she had heard before started singing in her head, in a whirlwind of complex harmonies, accompanied by the sound of cymbals, trumpets and drums, ringing loud and clear. When her feet entered the arch, they disappeared.

Ariana stopped seeing.

Listening to the chant, she instantly lost consciousness. Her sharp features appeared softened and her immobile lips graced with a smile; she was a true sleeping princess from a long lost fairy tale. Except that there were no fairies left in the wide world and only the immaterial voices kept on singing. But their song was their own and they could not tell Ariana if the children were stopped from dying.

Ariana was lost and she could not see any longer the metamorphosis of the Veil into the peaceful picture of the Birth of the Child, topped by the calm dark sky at night.

Darkness flooded Hogwarts. A shadow that had never conquered the school flooded the corridors, the towers, the turrets, the dungeons and the moving stairs. It crept into all classrooms, dormitories and common rooms, bringing despair to those still standing on their feet and holding their wands. None of them knew that their life force was well protected by a forbidden magical gift of one witch, and by the voluntary sacrifice of another who had let her life force be devoured by the Veil of Death, to keep the safe dimension for others properly in place.

Everybody assumed they were alive only because Voldemort stopped the fighting when Harry Potter gave himself in. The end had come.

xxxxxxx

When the Death Eaters were ordered to abandon the Acromantula's nest where Tom Riddle defeated Harry Potter, following the half-giant Hagrid who carried the lifeless body of the Boy Who Was Supposed to Live, Bellatrix tried to obey. Only a few steps behind the clearing, into the forest, she lost balance and fell behind, wounded and sleepy as a bear in winter.

Narcissa offered her a hand with a knowledgeable smile, and Bellatrix wondered if her sister could read her mind, hoping she could not. Groping the soil for support to stand up, she felt a rounded stone among her fingers. She gave it a furtive look. It was black and smooth, and it didn't belong to the forest. Not knowing any better, she stuck it in her pocket, where the Time Spanning Quill and Parchment were also stored, and took her sister's hand.

Luckily her latest state of mind where she couldn't tell what was right and what was wrong made it all the easier for her to appear insane. Bellatrix was at least equally emotionally unstable as in her previous condition of blind love for Voldemort. She avoided her Master's gaze and prodded in the most dignified manner she could muster on the outskirts of the group, careful not to stumble again, fighting to keep her heavy lidded eyes open, wondering what the hell she would do if (or rather, when) Voldemort gave order to slaughter everybody despite the death of the Boy Who Lived.

Then they were facing the rebels in Hogwarts and a different boy came forward.

It was Neville Longbottom.

"The son of Aurors," Bellatrix tried to mock him faking a delightful laugh.

But in her mind she curled and cowered, fighting the urge to cover her ears because she remembered all too well the screams of his parents being tortured into losing their mind; her own actions, her own crime. It was nauseating.

She heard the boy turned cowardly, almost a Squib. Severus always told what a disaster he was at school, especially at Potions.

And now the boy would die a useless death, a boy, almost Squib, a coward, a boy who may have been stronger if she did not cross his parents' path.

And for what, to show devotion to someone who held no affection whatsoever for anyone else, a monster who could not truly support any ideal, an abomination who cheated them all, pure-blooded idiots as they were, predestined for extinction.

Their so called _lord_ was a half-blood! She had shared a bed with a dirty half-blood! Bellatrix wanted to explode yet she kept quiet and giggled when appropriate, thanking Merlin for her Occlumency skills and appreciating the fact that she was of no importance to Voldemort, only because it meant that he would not even bother to read her troubled mind.

Then the orphan boy, the almost Squib boy, the pure-blooded lost boy, killed the snake.

And all the hell broke loose.

Bellatrix decided it was time to leave and find a place to sleep. Maybe in Astronomy Tower again. Or the owlery. No one would notice if only she could break her way through the fighting. A young red-haired girl was in her path, flanked by the bushy haired one and a very blond who would look like a Veela if she didn't wear the strangest pair of earrings Bellatrix had ever seen. _Better if I duel them a bit, than any of my… associates…_ she realised thinking of what the side she chose long ago was capable of. She engaged in a match with the girls, directing them with ease where she wanted to go, as one group, towards the end of the Great Hall and the way out of the battle.

But the girls fought fiercely, presenting a challenge. They were half way to where she wanted to take them and they wouldn't make another step back. So she was forced to direct her wand at her red-haired opponent in the middle.

She opened her mouth to stun her with force, and open a way, when she understood who the girl was. _His sister…_

"Not my daughter!" shouted a plump woman jumping in Bella's way.

 _His mother_ , Bellatrix thought sadly, as she duelled Molly Weasley half-heartedly, chuckling madly at the thought of her short and bizarre acquaintance with her son Charlie who was fond of dragons.

She could not break her way out of the Great Hall with standard spells and she could not bring herself to harm the woman, not her, not her, not for real.

There was only one way out of everything and Bellatrix had already tried turning her wand on herself but it didn't work. But what if someone else did it?

So Bella taunted Molly as ugly as she could asking what would become of her children when she killed mummy and sent her where their brother Freddy had already gone.

A feeling of red light square on her chest was almost as welcome as a lover's kiss, or a souvenir of cold thin hands roaming her body.

The time slowed down.

She wanted to forget those hands, but she could not, not entirely. The terrible irony that the warmest embrace of her sad life had been Voldemort's. Unnatural and false. She had been tainted forever.

A lifetime of regret would not have been long enough for anyone to forget or to forgive what Bellatrix Lestrange had done in the name of Voldemort.

Voldemort screamed, "No!"

And blasted the three opponents he'd been duelling to open his way to her, knowing she was dying.

 _So he did feel something… for me?_ Bella thought, thoroughly enjoying the inhuman scream as an admission long due.

But then, behind her former Master, she saw a freckled young face of a young man who made her his in all the ways no one ever dared before, not showing any respect for her age and reputation, no respect at all.

She would have wanted to say something to him, but it was too late.

Bellatrix closed her eyes.

xxxxxxxxxx

The Ministry Aurors found Val and Snape in the Shrieking Shack when the battle was over.

They brought them to the lowest and darkest level of the Ministry, to await their trial. Probably, they would be sent to Azkaban and administered a Dementor's Kiss. The trial would be a mere formality and certainly much more than Dumbledore's killer and a proven supporter of Death Eaters deserved.

The Auror in charge, whose name is now forgotten, was enduring a last few months of work before his retirement. He never knew Snape personally and he couldn't fathom why some of his grandchildren were so afraid of him as a teacher. Both prisoners were strangely calm and reserved as if nothing could alter their peace of mind. The man was weak and clinging to the woman, equally shaken, but stern. Her pale blue eyes didn't contain a slightest touch of green. By a stroke of unknown inspiration the unknown Auror was compelled to record for the posterity that the lady dressed in black had the happiest blue eyes he had ever seen, but his superior did not allow it, so only the entry on the absence of green in her eyes remained, written before the superior bothered to look. The old Auror also succeeded in recording his belief that the prisoners were innocent of any crime.

The prisoners were thrown into the same cell, and the report was left at the attention of the new interim Minister of Magic until the confusion of what happened on that day in Hogwarts was resolved.

No one ever read the official report on the detention, until a particularly nosy reporter of the Daily Prophet published it on the first anniversary of final battle, as a part of a large article on Voldemort's era, which won him a Wizitzer prize for investigative journalism. By that time, the signature of the old Auror, who may have been a more worthy recipient of the recognition, for his faithful and unbiased service, was eaten by Pixies in the Ministry archives.

On the day after the battle, the new self-appointed interim Minister of Magic, had no time to read boring reports or consider facts. Minister Thicknessee lay incapacitated in Hogwarts. There were many pressing concerns to respond to and the interim Minister was determined to prove her superiority and class to the wizarding world once and for all.

The interim Minister was called Dolores Jane Umbridge.

The hatred for Val and her father was widespread in the wizarding community opposing Voldemort, and the knowledge about their hospital for the Dark Lord followers had become a public secret. A group of Aurors was dispatched above the Ministry, to the Peverell shop, led by respectable John Dawlish. Dawlish had been in Hogwarts, but he returned to the Ministry before the end of the battle. They found the door of the shop barred and warded, beyond the capability of any of them to open it with magic.

And Ignotus Peverell was nowhere to be found.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sirius entered Hogwarts among the dense fumes. He walked with the morning breeze which chased away the sad grey colours of dusk, announcing the arrival of the new day.

It was not a school any more.

It was a cemetery with no one left alive to bury the dead. There were _students,_ wizards, witches, centaurs, giants, even the house-elves. There was Buckbeak, the hippogriff who once saved Sirius, grounded and immobile.

Bodies were lying scattered from the main entrance to the castle all the way to the Great Hall. In the middle lay Harry Potter and Voldemort. Dreading to examine his godson and confirm his greatest fears, Sirius first verified Tom Riddle's body for any sign of life.

Tom Riddle was definitely dead.

He lacked strength to check Harry after that. He couldn't do it. All his Gryffindor courage was gone with the wind, or perhaps properly buried deep under the burden of despair.

They had won but at what cost? They were all dead, every single last one of them, and Remus was probably dying as well.

Sirius wandered around like a madman, carrying Remus in his arms. Warm liquid ran down his cheeks; the tears he couldn't bring himself to shed when James and Lily died, and he had been sent to Azkaban. Yet crying brought no relief and his tears tasted like salty venom in his mouth.

He ventured behind the Great Hall where more bodies were laid on improvised beds waiting for someone to pay them the last respect. But there wasn't anyone wandering the halls except for Sirius as far as he could tell.

Sirius noticed an empty space next to the body of his cousin Nymphadora Tonks, one of her hands stretched out with the open palm, as if she was missing something. He gently lay Remus next to her and put her hand in his.

Strange, her hand had a tinge of warm and felt heavy just like Remus did in his arms.

He ran back to Voldemort with a sense of foreboding. Cold as ice.

He immediately ran to Harry. A tinge of warm? Or was he finally completely insane? He went checking the bodies, one by one, frantic in his endeavour. They were all… slightly warm? Could they be… breathing?! He leaned over their mouths in vain. No air, no sign of life. Yet, slightly warm…

Only Voldemort and one young boy left alone in the corridors felt cold as ice, and dead as if they had never been living beings to begin with, but rather inanimate objects like wood or stone.

His heart raced and his mind ran even faster to the conclusions than usual. _Maybe, maybe, they are not dead. Maybe it's a spell. But what kind of spell could put all castle inhabitants to deep sleep so similar to death? And what kind of spell could undo it?_

With his head full of questions, his long legs spontaneously took him to the refuge of his youth. Stopping in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Great, he asked himself the same question a thousand times over, _Is it a spell? How can it be undone?_

The door of the Room of Requirement slowly revealed itself, wide open, not secret and closed to start with.

Among the dark fumes that invaded the entire castle and were very slow to abandon it with the light of the day, he could discern a looming silhouette of the arch and a slender tall body prostrated in front of it on the floor. Sirius stormed in and immediately sank on his knees to finally touch the smooth face of a woman he desired, fragile in the eerie surroundings, ephemeral as a falling star. He went on caressing her with special devotion. Feeling an already familiar tinge of warm, he released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

 _I found you_ , he thought, _I knew I would. I just knew it._

Even if he hadn't known, not truly, and he had even less ideas about what to do next.

"Don't worry, love," Sirius told Ariana aloud to convince himself of the reality of what he was experiencing as she could clearly not hear him. "I will undo this spell if it's the last thing that I do."

He noticed she was partially consumed by the arch. The tattered Veil was gone. On the very familiar, idyllic Muggle painting of the birth of a baby, the new born child had the nerve to _smile_ at him after it had stolen his girlfriend's beautiful feet. Sirius felt that the giant patch of the dark blue sky in the upper half of the painting was vibrating protectively over the painted child and his mother and father. And not only over them. He was sure of it.

The so called Veil of Death, or whatever it was in reality, watched over Hogwarts.

A rather long, silver coloured, pliable wand protruded from the middle of the painting, half a meter above the baby's parents. _Birch_ , Sirius thought, directing his own wand towards it to see if he could get it loose. Maybe it was the key to waking up Ariana.

" _Accio,"_ he said, trying to summon the unknown wand.

A flash of golden light surged from his wand and joined a silvery surge from the one in the painting, drawing them irresistibly together until Sirius lost grip. His wand fell to the ground and than hopped cheerfully in the direction of the painting, devouring speedily the next few inches of space, as if it had been launched with great force. The disobedient wand flew into the painting, piercing the canvas next to the black and silver bendable one already in it, as if they were two arrows shot by a skilled archer one next to the other, in the very middle of the desired target.

 _Great_ , Sirius thought, _how much more stupid can I get?_

Anyone who remotely knew Sirius Orion Black was well aware that for all his arrogance and unquestionable personal abilities, and for all his noble and most ancient heritage of magical education, talent and genes, he was quite incapable of doing wandless magic, apart from his Animagus transfiguration.

"Sirius!" a young voice called from the door, somewhat deeper than he'd remembered it, sounding almost like James.

"Harry!" Sirius turned around as his godson advanced towards him and met him half way to the door in a giant bear hug. "You are awake!"

"Are you… are you dead or alive?" stuttered Harry.

"I don't know," said Sirius honestly.

"Are they… are they…" Harry couldn't continue.

"I don't know either, Harry," Sirius interrupted. "But we will believe that they are only asleep. We have to believe that."

"I did it! I did it, Sirius! I defeated Voldemort…"

"I know, Harry, I know. It's over," Sirius commented, grinning like an idiot.

Harry looked at the woman on the floor. "She is… she is the portrait! Dumbledore's sister! Neville told me she recently appeared as a ghost and haunted Hogwarts!"

"Harry, please, do show some respect to future Mrs Black. We'll just have to figure out how to solve our little problem of beauty sleep first..." Sirius was not alone any more and he immediately felt much more normal. He was with Harry again and things just had to change for the better. They were a team! That had to mean something regardless of the loss of his wand.

"Mrs Black?" Harry exclaimed.

"I'll explain later."

The chatter of voices echoed in the corridor, unfriendly and confused, revealing the arrival of the forces of the Ministry, too late and incompetent as usual. The unknown wizarding voices wondered what has happened, rejoiced at the fall of Voldemort and knew even less than Harry and Sirius did about whether everyone else was dead or alive.

"At least we apprehended Snape and that female Death Eater. They will talk when faced with the Dementors. It's a pity we couldn't find the girl's father. He's behind it all, I reckon, the old bastard."

"Shut up, Dawlish, everyone knows Dementors no longer respond do the Ministry but to You-Know-Who."

"Well, You-Know-Who is dead and there is not a single Dementor here in Hogwarts anymore. I understand that the interim Minister Umbridge has a good working relationship with them…"

Sirius and Harry looked at each other. Harry beckoned to his godfather to follow him. Soon they ran like one down the secret passage leading from the Room of Requirement to Hog's Head. The door of the Room of Requirement disappeared behind them, hiding the painting and its beautiful captive. Dawlish and his colleague with no faith in the Dementors passed by the tapestry of Barnabas the Great, never the wiser for what they were missing

The time travelling motorcycle was left behind somewhere in front of the gates, waiting to fall in the capable hands of the Ministry.

Sirius wished it to follow him as he ran, clenching his hands as if he still held the handlebars. To his utter amazement, the bike was neatly parked in front of Hog's Head when they arrived, waiting for them. _I summoned it_ , he thought.

He decided to explain his new found ability by convincing himself that Ariana contaminated him with her wandless talents in the too short time they spent together. The satisfaction was double, the theory brought at least some order into the chaos he was facing, and it confirmed his latest, unfounded, pig-headedly strong conviction that Ariana and he were meant to be together.

And things that were meant to be, just had to happen, despite all odds, didn't they?

A fleeting thought occurred to him that if Phineas Nigellus Black could see him now he might have been proud.

Sirius had found his way.

"Harry, let's go home. We need a place to think," he said in a hurry.

"Which home?"

"The one and only," Sirius said quietly, as he kicked off the motorcycle and drove them away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading


	23. Home, Sweet Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius finds out there is more to his family than in his wildest dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Comments feed the author.

The hall of Number 12 Grimmauld Place was completely dark, irradiating a very atypical aura of peace, when a faint sound of tired breathing finally broke the calm silence of the house.

"Val!" a voice whispered, urgently. There was no answer.

"Wally, we have to talk," the whisper became more insistent and was met with the familiar welcome of Mrs Black's portrait.

"Blood-traitors! Scum!"

"Walburga! It's me! We have to talk. Please, you have to hear me out!" a voice spoke rapidly.

"Dirty Mudbloods!"

"I'm not a Mudblood and you know it, Walburga, look at me, don't act as if Hippogriffs have eaten your brains, for Merlin's sake. _Lumos!"_ The light revealed a short, chubby old man whose thick curls used to be blond and were now filled with grey, holding a brownish wand in a shaky, half transparent hand with determination.

"Iggy?! How dare you?!"

"At least you remember my name! Merlin, Wally, you left me for your precious cousin Orion and now you're asking me such questions?" Ignotus Peverell was enraged for the first time in his death despite his already rather long and fruitful existence as a ghost.

"Ignotus Peverell the Fourteenth, for the record you left _me_! Arcturus told me you went to Brazil because you got an offer to play over there you could not refuse! You and your trumpet! Orion was the only option! You knew I was with child. And…" Walburga swallowed as if she couldn't bring herself to tell him the rest.

"Go ahead, Wally," said the man called Iggy for the first time in nearly 40 years, filled with unspeakable bitterness. "Tell me how you left our child. How you let your family take it away."

"Who told you that, Iggy?" asked Walburga as if extreme surprise made it easier for her to state the terrible truth. "All I know is that it was a girl… I was so upset when you left me. I prayed that my depression wouldn't hurt the child, but she still died in birth. They showed me her disfigured little body."

 _"_ I _s_ that what they told you, Val? And you believed them? _You_ actually believed your family?" asked Iggy, incredulously.

"You always said you were a Hufflepuff and a coward. That you were only good to play music! You were right," concluded Mrs Black. "I just didn't see it on time."

"And you're a Slytherin and you believed _them_?"

"They showed me your recent memories! I could see they were not tampered with. You despised me! You didn't love me any more, Iggy, I don't know if you ever did. You loved your trumpet more than you ever loved me."

"Yes, I hated you after they showed me first _your_ memories of accepting to marry Orion Black willingly! Of loving him! Orion was so good looking, like all of you cursed Blacks. Who would want an ugly, short, chubby blond wizard losing his hair, getting old and enjoying Muggle music? You called me a dirty half-breed when you spoke to your fiancée making fun of my magical gift! And while I never shared your aristocratic looks, I'm as pure-blooded as you are. Not that I've ever found it important in the least," said Ignotus stubbornly, visibly consumed by self-pity and immeasurable hurt.

"Iggy, for Merlin's sake I've been with _you_ for years! How could I ever say anything like that? Those were the best days of my life. Do you still remember how we played together?" Mrs Black started humming a fast ear-catching tune for jazz piano until her ugly murky eyes suddenly narrowed in sharp understanding. "The experimental time bending Crystal Sphere in Malfoy Manor... I fainted on a party from pregnancy sickness. They must have Imperiused me and dragged me in there, forcing me into a future in which you truly had left me and I pretended to love Orion to spite you. Then they fed this... this dream... this abomination of one possible future to you as my memory. And they served me in turn your memories of despising me also in the Sphere because Malfoys supposedly didn't own a Pensieve! I wondered why they did it, but now it all makes sense. They showed me your recent hatred of me as if it happened already in the past when we were together... around the date when I announced I was pregnant to you. I saw you cursing me, Iggy! You cursed the day you've met me, calling me a slut, rambling how I was not carrying your child…"

Mrs Black finally raised her eyes to meet her guest and asked the next logical question in a voice charged with emotion: "What did _they_ do to you, Iggy?"

"Er... They? Nothing much," replied Peverell sheepishly, struck deep with her words, revealing his true form of a ghost as he elaborated further. "Voldemort fancied killing me for them. He was not yet powerful at the time so I guess I was good target practice for him in his early days... You know, How-to-make-a-Horcrux-workshop kind of thing for beginner Dark Lords…"

"Right, he was a green boy at the time," Walburga retorted mockingly as if she gossiped with an old friend, before her wrinkled eyes turned big as saucers, taking in the obvious truth from his words. "Merlin, Iggy, he did kill you!"

"You said I was the coward. I stayed as a ghost. I was afraid to move on."

"If I was dead at that time, I would say you stayed not to face me in the afterlife," said Mrs Black with a small smile.

"No, Val," Ignotus said, ashamed, about to confess his reason for lingering behind in the past, as well as for finally seeking out in present the witch who he thought betrayed him, after nearly 40 years of stubborn silence. "I stayed for our daughter. She's alive. I named her as you always wanted, Lyra. But she only wants to be called by her second name because she hates both me and the name I gave her. She's a brilliant witch."

Mrs Black covered her mouth with both hands and gulped hard to catch some air. If portraits could have fatal heart attacks, she would've gotten one.

"A year ago…" she stuttered, "a woman came prodding my halls with that horrible greasy-haired git posing as a Death Eater. She was a living image of what our daughter would be like if-"

"Yes, you saw our daughter. She told me when we returned to London about a house where a portrait ran into hiding at her sight. I knew it was you. But I was once more too big a coward to face you again."

"Why seeking me now, Iggy?" Mrs Black asked in a heartless voice.

"Because she's missing!" shouted Peverell into the hollow emptiness of the house. "She hasn't come home for 48 hours and I'm afraid that Voldemort killed her. And I'm unable to handle this by myself. You were my strength, Wally! I need you to find out what happened to our daughter. I just can't do it alone because I'm too afraid of what I might find out, even if you hate me for not being there for you when you needed me the most."

"What have they done to us?" Mrs Black blurted as Ignotus sank on the floor in front of the portrait, losing his composure, too scared to look up at the woman he still adored.

"You gave me a promise, Iggy..." said Mrs Black in an unnaturally cold voice.

"And I kept every word of it," said Ignotus Peverell in all honesty. "When you told me you were pregnant, I promised that no matter what happened I would look after any child of yours. And I did."

"Tell me about it," she implored.

Still seated, Ignotus started talking, willing his voice that of a storyteller, whose words could finally be heard loud and true after years of self-imposed censorship. "I overheard Voldemort ordering the bunch of his supporters, mostly your family and their friends to look after little Lyra for him. He thought that keeping her alive would make me more malleable to persuasion about telling him some things he wanted to know. If I didn't talk, then they would let her grow up to see if she inherited my magical gift. Later, she would become Voldemort's new plaything or the next Horcrux making material. That is, after he successfully made the first one in the attempt that cost me my life."

"I swear that I had no idea they told you she was dead. And I could not fathom why you would leave your daughter even if you had never loved me. You had money and personal capacity to raise her by yourself. I heard her crying somewhere in the house in an instant before I was killed, and I couldn't bring myself to move on to the other side. I became a ghost and my first impulse was to run away and haunt a manor in some sunny land."

"But I could not forget my daughter's crying. You remember that my mother left me the jars with dragon flames for dire emergencies. I returned to our bar and I opened the correct one, summoning Betty from Brasil. She arrived in a matter of hours in great haste and secrecy."

"We landed on top of the den of the Death Eaters in making, shortly after Tom Riddle left, the place where I'd been tortured and murdered. It was a house from a bloke called Nott, I believe, well placed somewhere in central London, not too far away from here."

"When I rescued Lyra, I had Betty _scorch_ the place where they held our daughter captive. All wizards unlucky to find themselves there were killed. I purposefully brought a few Muggle friends of mine to watch my crime. I... I was counting on the Ministry Obliviators to thoroughly erase the truth of what has happened so that Voldemort could find no magical trace that our daughter survived the attack of Nott's unknown dragon-armed enemies," the ghost sounded grim, filled with regret about the slaughter he had caused in the past. "Such skirmishes among the ancient and noble families were quite usual in London at the time as you well know."

"For months I hoped you would have a change of heart. We lived as Muggles in my pub, in seclusion from the entire wizarding community. I hoped you would seek me out before you married, before it was too late. You knew where to find me. The door always remained open to you even if no other magical creature could use it. But instead there were news of your marriage. The birth of your children made the front page of the Witch Weekly twice, and the Ministry was about to issue a decree where ghosts were to be forbidden to hold property... On top of the existing one stipulating we can't have legal custody over children…"

"So I collected my possessions and the broken pieces of my heart and returned to Brazil to my Mum's old house to raise our daughter. But I only left after placing a special tracing charm, made of the living memory of my promise to you, on the grounds where my pub stands when I'm in London. That trace would alarm me if your children with Orion would be in mortal danger."

"I saved Regulus, Val," Ignotus stated with satisfaction. "Well, technically Betty did that as well. He's a fine young man and he's been in Brazil with me ever since. I never told him, about you, about us…"

"It's okay, Iggy..." Mrs Black said, her demeanour almost kind.

"I came back for Sirius as well when his life was in danger," Ignotus continued nervously. "But I was too late."

"It truly is okay," Walburga repeated quietly. "No one could ever help Sirius when he put something into his head."

"Because he turned out so much like you, Wally, reckless as hell. He took a ride through time and worse, he brought another person from that past to this future. I'm not sure if he's technically alive or dead now, despite my knowledge of parallel realities and time travelling devices..." Iggy's voice lost force and dwindled into nothingness, afraid of having said too much.

Mrs Black hurried to supplement his confession with her own. "What happened to Sirius was not your fault. I... I treated Sirius as scum... I did... I thought if I did it convincingly enough... I thought he'd forget his liberal views and not become disappointed as I was in the end, for daring to live differently than I've been taught... Iggy, he was indeed like me... Or like I used to be before I returned to my family ideals when they convinced me of your betrayal. So I harmed Sirius. I was punishing him for being like me. I thought I could prevent him from repeating my mistakes... When he did openly all things I did in secret, I blasted him off the family tree."

"I never knew if I did it in envy and in revenge because he was not a coward like me, or if I did it to protect him from the rest of us, thinking that perhaps the family would leave the outcast alone to live his life in peace if I did that..."

"And, Iggy…" Mrs Black's voice turned almost inaudible in extreme vulnerability and disarray. "I... I did betray you in the end. When Regulus was born, I did love Orion. He was not a bad man. I cannot lie about that."

"Mum," said a familiar voice with an ironic sneer from the dark porch. "This was most illuminating."

"SiriusI!" Mrs Black screamed and searched for the owner of the deep voice in the gloomy corners of the hallway, before suffering a change of heart and running away to hide into the depth of her portrait.

"Mr Black," Ignotus Peverell said quietly. "I'm glad to see you back. How much did you hear?"

xxxxxxxx

Sirius was shaking as he stepped into the magically created small pool of light in front of his mother's portrait. The pallor of his face could compete with freshly fallen snow. Harry followed him with two wands at ready, and an enemy look on his face directed at the elderly, broken looking ghost, seated alone on the mouldy floor.

"Regulus... is he alive? Do I have a sister?" Sirius whispered.

"Yes and yes to both. But your sister went to Hogwarts to help mount the defence against Voldemort and hasn't come back for two days" replied the man Walburga called Iggy.

"Mother... Would you care to explain?" Harry had never heard Sirius making a polite request from his mother who could not be seen in the portrait, seemingly too shocked to continue the discussion.

"If you allow me..." Ignotus Peverell tried to interfere.

"No!" Sirius roared and walked past him, viciously shaking the frame of the painting with both arms. "I want an explanation from you, old hag!"

Harry thought his godfather's treatment of his mother was suitable for Mrs Black, even if, after having seen Snape's memories, he wasn't too sure about the motivations of any person, no matter how evil they might have appeared.

No answer was forthcoming to Sirius's angry plea.

"Iggy," Walburga finally inquired, unseen, from the unknown depths of her painted home. "What's the name Lyra uses if she hates her own?"

"I could not register paternity as a ghost here in Britain, so her full legal name over here is Lyra Walburga Black, but she doesn't know that. She uses the last name Peverell and everybody calls her Val."

"My name," a much more pleasant voice of a woman said from far away.

"Yes," confirmed Ignotus, "she always preferred using your name despite having no idea who her mother was."

By that time Sirius did his best to pull his mother's portrait down from the wall by sheer force, with the result that he was covered in stripes of old green wall-paper and smeared with glue residues, clutching in his hands a large broken piece of the frame, but the cursed painting remained firmly in place.

"Mum!" he called her, powerless, in a crazy fashion characteristic of the worst moments in his life. "Will you come out or not?"

"I'm right here," a deep female voice replied and the old hag from Grimmauld Place 12 was gone, replaced by a stern, cold, serious looking elderly woman with beautiful dark grey hair, pinned neatly on top of her head with a snake-shaped iron hair pin. The silvery and golden streaks in her hair, that younger Val worked so hard to hide, were clearly visible above her ears. Her mother's eyes were a mixture of green and grey, clear as a deep water of a lake. The painted figure wore elegant dark grey robes with emerald colour borders; all her posture an expression of stark dignity.

"Sirius, do control your basic urges to ruin our property for a second. I will be with you shortly," she said to her son, reprehending his behaviour,

"Look at me, Ignotus," Walburga added calmly. "I've also found a way to stay. In hope you would come back to me so that I could punch your rounded face and pay you back in kind for your betrayal."

A proud elderly woman stepped courageously out of her portrait, leaning on a troll-legged umbrella stand in order to help herself down safely from a much higher ground.

"Val! How? You're not a ghost!" Ignotus stated in surprise, raising his eyes to meet hers.

"Thank my son Sirius here," the woman called Val for the first time in almost 40 years tapped her very confused grown up son on his wall-paper covered back, before daintily sitting on the floor next to Ignotus.

"I rewrote the spell of his most annoying Permanent Sticking Charm. He used it to decorate his room against my wishes. I used it to permanently glue a reflection of my true personality at the time of my death into the horrible portrait Arcturus had had painted of me, just before I succumbed to dragon-pox. He never figured my little stunt as far as I know. Arcturus was after all never the brightest Slytherin among us," Mrs Black chuckled remembering how she tricked her obnoxious father in law.

"I can't move very far from my portrait and I have some other limitations, but essentially it's me, Iggy," Mrs Black put her head on a ghost-like shoulder, making it clearly visible for Sirius and Harry that she was at least half a head taller than her former lover.

"And I took the liberty to keep some of my looks from the better times," she concluded with the slightest trace of vanity and a perfectly evil smile.

"Mother," Sirius said again in a rumbling voice, more similar to the snarling of a dog than to human speech, "I'm truly glad that I was of assistance to dupe grandfather Arcturus, but I will not hesitate to hurt you if you don't start telling me the truth."

The ghost of Ignotus Peverell turned corporeal again and drew his wand menacingly in direction of Sirius until a cold slim hand held him back.

"It's alright, Iggy. My son deserves at least that," she said calmly before turning to Sirius, ignoring that her hand got hungrily grabbed in a ghost-like squeeze, in search of comfort and reassurance.

"Sirius... You know I was 35 when I had you, and very shortly after I had Regulus as well. Your father was four years younger than me and much more inexperienced…" Walburga's voice hesitated. "For before that, I was 20 once. I graduated from Hogwarts and did all that my parents expected from me except that I wouldn't marry. I was the oldest child, luckily a girl, so I was not an heir. I could afford that behaviour. I met Iggy in his apothecary shop when I accompanied my father to the Ministry of Magic. Or, to tell the truth, I had met him already, but I never truly noticed him before as a Hufflepuff in my year in Hogwarts, short, ordinary, too timid to speak and always hidden in the last row."

"Forgive me, Iggy, you know how I felt about you later," she told the ghost in an unsuccessful attempt to squeeze back his immaterial arm. "But he needs to hear it from the beginning."

"While my father was choosing potion ingredients, Iggy asked me out in front of his nose, writing to me on a wrapping paper from which the words would disappear as soon as my father would look at us. I thought that the boy was joking because no one ever dared to ask me out. I was just too intimidating with my looks, my height that made me tower over other witches, and my posture worthy of a Black. I was curious so I accepted. That same night he showed me his shop at night, turned into a Muggle pub. He turned out to be a talented and outspoken young musician, persecuted by women and quite self-assured in their company, as if in the world of music his plainness and short stature didn't matter. Ignotus played a trumpet. I used to play the piano, most pure blooded witches did in their youth, but never like that, never _Muggle_ style. The piano was there. I went to him, to the stage, and we played... It was the best night of my life."

"Sirius," Ignotus immediately jumped in when Walburga paused to take a breath, "when we were still in Hogwarts, I only had eyes for your mother. She didn't even know I existed. She didn't notice I was the best student in my year in Charms, her second favourite subject. When she walked into my shop, I knew that my destiny walked through the door."

"You heard the end and it's not very charming," said Walburga succintly. "We dated for almost 15 years and we played together during all that time. I was a perfect Slytherin and my family never suspected a thing."

"When I found out I was pregnant, the family discovered it all. What I did in my free time, Iggy, our relationship, everything. They broke us apart."

"I hate to interrupt" Harry said, noticing the growingly hypnotised face of his godfather, "but we have some rather urgent business to resolve. A spell we have never seen put the entire Hogwarts in the state of suspended animation. They are alive but they cannot wake. It's terrible! Maybe Sirius's sister is also there!"

"She cast the spell. It's called dimension shifting and she is the only witch in Britain who can do it," said Ignotus Peverell proudly as if what happened in Hogwarts had been the most natural thing in the world.

"What?" Walburga, Sirius and Harry exclaimed at the same time.

"You could have told me," Walburga pouted, offended.

"I didn't have exactly the time since we stared this conversation, did I?" retorted Ignotus.

"Er... what is dimension shifting?" asked Harry politely.

"Harry, it's a very Dark Magic forbidden by the Ministry. Very few people are able to do it, just like with Seeing you need a special gift," explained Sirius.

Walburga was just staring at Peverell. "Iggy..." she said gently while Sirius and Harry were rolling their eyes at the old couple in obvious discomfort. "You could have told me."

"What difference would it make? You knew what I was. Yes, Val inherited my gift and her gift will probably die with her as her daughter did not receive it."

"I have a granddaughter?" asked Walburga.

"I have a niece," added Sirius, sarcastically.

"Er... Sir... Could you explain?" Harry insisted with Mr Peverell, getting more and more curious, following his gut feeling that they were finally on to something important.

"Dimension shifting is a rare skill unjustly persecuted by the Ministry, young man-"

"-Potter. Harry Potter," the Boy Who Lived introduced himself.

"Mr Potter," said Ignotus with a smile, realizing he must have met the latest owner of his ancestor's invisibility cloak, which passed to the Potters a few centuries ago. And which would also explain why Harry and Sirius could not be seen by Walburga when standing in the porch. "There have been so few dimension shifters in the wizarding history that the Ministry knows next to nothing about it. The good thing is, with how things are going nowadays, neither does Voldemort. It's a rare ability that only one child can inherit from a parent who has it him or herself."

"The bearer of the gift can create several universes existing in the same space and the same time. For example this house can be this house, a barn, and a school at the same time, with all the detail, features and furniture pertaining to those places. And I can choose which people I allow into each of the dimensions. People from the barn have no contact with people from the school. They pass through each other if needs be. Yet they are all in this space. It is also possible to store only the consciousness of living beings in a separate dimension."

"I believe that my daughter cast the spell on Hogwarts to keep people alive after the final battle with Voldemort. Even if Voldemort would win, they would be kept safe in another dimension."

"Voldemort is dead," Harry said briefly. "Why is everyone still asleep? Why didn't she bring them back?"

"We should return to Hogwarts. I cannot say more before seeing the situation."

"Good, let's go" said Sirius coldly. "No time to loose."

"Iggy," Walburga interrupted. "I didn't have the opportunity to ask before, but... Why didn't you want to hide us all with your gift?"

"When your family found out, it was already too late for that. Dimension shifting is not Dark Magic but it is still a form of falseness, a possibility to hide and twist the truth. And falseness doesn't go hand in hand with genuine affection. I loved you, Walburga. When you told me you were pregnant I irrevocably pledged myself to you and when you whole-heartedly returned my love, I lost my gift. It's the blessing and the curse of my kind."

"Really?" Walburga croaked, "You gave it up for me?"

"And I would give it up for you again a thousand times and a thousand times more."

Walburga Black sobbed openly while Sirius and Harry gave awkward looks to each other, not sure what to do.

"When I rescued our daughter, she kept both of us safe in the pub, she could shift dimensions since she was a baby. She has not yet encountered her true love and maybe she never will. So she has to go on living with her gift. It can be quite a burden, I can tell," Ignotus finished his line of thoughts.

"It happened when you touched my eyes," Mrs Black said softly and traced his translucent eyebrows as if she was reliving a particularly cherished memory.

"As you did mine" it was time for Ignotus Peverell to grin like an idiot and enthusiastically hug the reflection of the only love of his life.

Harry ventured, fishing for more information that could help his friends stuck asleep at Hogwarts: "Your daughter had a daughter as well?"

"She didn't love her daughter's father, not truly, not deeply. She liked him well enough and she married him Muggle style to spite me and to do what she wanted in her life. Young Val is even more tempestuous than her mother," sighed Mr Peverell."

"Just like you, Sirius," whispered Mrs Black almost with motherly love. "Have you ever wondered where your infamous temper comes from? Still, you have always been even more special. The first Gryffindor ever in the family as far as we know... "

"I don't want to hear it, mother. It is too late for regrets if you have any. I will put my head under cold water to forget about all this. Then I will return to Hogwarts," Sirius said in a voice so deep as if it was coming from grave, and started towards the kitchen.

As an afterthought he suddenly turned back and pushed his mother forcefully back into her portrait frame, violently closing the curtains in front of it, ignoring the resistance of her ghostly lover. Walburga Black immediately started screeching in earnest, except that the text was different than her habitual offences and it seemed that she actually may have wanted to talk to Sirius. "Wait! Don't you dare! You have to hear me out now! Please, Sirius!"

"Shut up!" Sirius yelled to chase the horrible noise of his mother's screams.

In a few seconds of silence that miraculously followed, somewhere up the stairs, all present could hear a tiny but a very persistent echo of a sound.

A baby was crying.

"Mother?" Sirius opened the curtains aggressively. "Did you have more children recently that I don't know anything about? Despite being old, ugly and dead?"

Walburga responded with a perfectly offended frosty tone even Snape could never have mustered, a dark witch to the core, indicating that the time for emotions and regrets was indeed long gone when it concerned her. "If you had let me finish, I would have told you."

"Told me what?" her son did not relent.

"You owe me a debt of gratitude for baby-sitting young Alphard since his mother also went to Hogwarts two days ago. I guess she wanted to take part in the same silly war as my daughter."

"Young Alphard?" Sirius growled, uncertain, hands trembling like fallen leaves in the autumn breeze.

"Alphard Phineas Black. Your son."


	24. The Day After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the former prisoner of Azkaban becomes an esteemed defence counsel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.

The word spread fast that Voldemort was dead.

The Interim Minister of Magic Dolores Jane Umbridge was cheerfully slurping her morning tea in the office, a wild cherry blend with a lovely rich scent. She was hiding from the reporters camped outside, eager to hear the official Ministry statement about the events in Hogwarts the day, or better said, the night before.

Umbridge nervously leafed through the report composed by the Auror team who checked the premises, giving evidence on the Unbreakable Dreamless Sleep (a preliminary and not yet conclusive diagnosis of St Mungos magical healing experts) of all wizards, witches and magical creatures who happened to find themselves in the great school of magic, among which the very frail looking Minister Thicknessee.

All slept, except the two Death Eaters taken prisoners; Severus Snape and Val Peverell, both caught awake in each other's arms, the Dark Mark burnt on their left forearms. Both cursed to be mute, or perhaps simply unwilling to say a word. One could not tell. Mute even with the use of Unforgivables and other illegal wizarding methods to make them talk. You-Know-Who's dead body lay sprawled like an infestation on the stone slabs of Hogwarts. And the Undesirable Number One Mr Harry Potter was missing. The day could not possibly be more eventful.

Having finished her tea with a deep sigh and a satisfied smile all over her face, Umbridge decided to blame the Dreamless Sleep effect on the two prisoners and give the credit for the demise of Voldemort to the Ministry. It was so easy and the reports worked in her favour. She called in Auror Dawlish and shared this information with him in hush-hush tones.

The day was entirely too beautiful, so she chose to completely ignore a somewhat nagging discrepancy in her meticulously organised mind; the recollection that Dawlish himself was present in Hogwarts during whatever had been happening the night before. Yet he got out on time not to fall asleep, so he was just the same exception to the general rule like the two Death Eaters.

But the wizarding world needed heroes, and Auror Dawlish was the head of the efforts to find out what had transpired. As such, he deserved a commendation and a promotion. Besides, he seemed to fully approve of her ingenious strategy about the guilt of the prisoners.

All was well.

Umbridge completed the draft press statement handed to her by Dawlish with those details, using elaborate writing style of the early 1920s. Every letter was intricately detailed, reminiscent of the leaves of a Poisonous Ivy, a very potent ingredient in many rejuvenating potions Dolores recently experimented with. Loudly clearing her throat, she walked out of the office, flanked by five personal Dementor guards, kept at safe distance from her body by a fierce silvery Patronus cat.

The word spread too fast that Voldemort was dead.

The courtyard of the Ministry of Magic was crawling with reporters and not only. It would seem that every witch or wizard living in London, or England for that matter, came to answer a call that had never been made. More of them were joining the gathering as Umbridge approached, many in dress robes, as if they attended a solemn festivity, or a particularly important funeral.

The Dementors cleared the ground between the Minister and the crowd. Umbridge was pleased that her irrefutable conclusions were soon to be broadcasted to the entire wizarding world, sensing only very vaguely in the back of her mind that something in the air was profoundly wrong.

A reporter with bright-rimmed glasses fired her first question without waiting for any official statements. "The Boy Who Lived is missing according to my sources. Where is he? And did he kill Voldemort?"

More wizards adhered to the many who were already there.

They kept pouring in from every opening, silent and curious. The revolution of the shy, of the ordinary. Umbridge stopped smiling and pulled on her most serious face. It was not going to be _that_ easy. She caught herself altering slightly her precooked statement to sound more natural and more convincing than merely reading it. In a tone of a good-natured grandmother to them all, she replied to the journalist, adjusting her pink cardigan as she spoke, "Hem, we have no indication that Harry Potter was at all present at Hogwarts. All members of magical community there have fallen in deep sleep, caused by the dark magic of two Death Eaters captured by the Ministry, Headmaster Severus Snape who killed Albus Dumbledore according to eye-witnesses, and Mrs Val Peverell, a well-known owner of the healing institute for the Dark Lord's followers nearby the Ministry premises, whose activity we've closely monitored in the last two years. The prisoners will be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss to answer for their crimes. And the Ministry will do all in its power to wake up their victims. The only dead wizards so far are Tom Riddle Junior, known as You-Know-Who and Colin Creevy, a Mudbl... I wanted to say, a Muggle born, whose family had been informed."

A small reporter with a bright green hat and unruly mousy hair interrupted her, "Phoebus Quakey, from the _Quibbler_. Miss Umbridge, wouldn't it be better to question the prisoners or to force them to undo the dark spell, for the benefit of those sleeping?"

"The correct title is Interim Minister, Mr Quakey. The prisoners refuse to talk. Their crime is self-evident. There is no other course of action."

The Dementors swooped forward as Minister Umbridge spoke. The nasty female reporter with glasses continued, "Rita Skeeter, from the _Daily_ _Prophet_ , I forgot to present myself earlier. Interim Minister, who killed Voldemort? Where is Harry Potter? What kind of dark spell did the two Death Eaters use?"

The crowd now filled the entire courtyard of the Ministry, including the inside of the fountain, where they stood immersed in water up to their knees as if it was no trouble at all. Their eyes were expressionless, yet strangely expectant, clearly not satisfied with the Interim Minister's explanation of the events. _Yes, there is something wrong,_ thought Umbridge, fighting an increasing headache, and an undefined sense of impending doom.

The word spread far too fast that Voldemort was dead.

It went all around; as if no one could contain the virus of freedom after the departure of the darkness. And much of what used to be considered a self-evident truth was now questioned, and changed forever.

"The Ministry Aurors who defeated Voldemort will receive Merlin's Crosses of Honour for their heroic action. We will release more pertinent information on their identity and the timing of the ceremony when appropriate. That is all for now. The Dementors will now go and kiss the prisoners. Thank you all for your attention," Umbridge finished, and realised what was wrong as soon as she stopped speaking.

The Dementors swooped forward but no one flinched. No one backed off. No one was afraid. The air turned thick from the multitude breathing. There were no Patronuses cast, yet there they stood, waiting, not succumbing to despair. The herd of sheep turned fearless by a mysterious force of nature. Umbridge realised with utmost horror that there was a _Centaur_ , a _giant,_ and a few _house-elves_ in the multitude, the magical creatures not shrinking from their betters, as they _should._

A rather short dark-haired witch with broken nose pushed herself forward through the wizarding mass.

"Dolores," she said "I welcome your designation as Interim Minister."

"Thank you, Brunhilda," said Umbridge complacently. Brunhilda Crouch was a cousin thrice removed of the deceased Bartemius Crouch Senior. Normally she should share the same political views as the essentially self-appointed Interim Minister, in the midst of the confusion that had taken hold of the Ministry. By all counts, the sleeping Minister Thicknessee was a puppet of Voldemort. And with the You-Know-Who gone, Umbridge would be only too happy if none of the sleepers in Hogwarts ever woke up to remind everyone how she eagerly took part in Thicknessee's regime, at least where the Muggle-born registration was concerned. _Good gracious,_ thought Umbridge, _they should all have the decency to die tragically._

Their most unfortunate passing would cement her well-deserved taking of the highest wizarding office.

"Dolores, my dear, I would like to thank you for your statement and make an announcement," Brunhilda continued placidly. "As the Interim Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot by right, considering Mr Avery who last held this position lies asleep in Hogwarts, with many of our brothers and sisters, and I served as his Underchief..."

"I herewith request the presence of _all_ the awake Members of the Wizengamot to meet tomorrow afternoon at 2 pm and hear the prisoners out for trial. I declare the session to be open to the general public. No Dementor's Kiss or any other punishment will be dealt to the prisoners until such time that a verdict is reached by the legislator, by virtue of the Article 17, paragraph 3, (a) of the Decree Number 1131 of the Ministry of Magic from year 1945 on a procedure to be followed regarding matters that seriously threaten the future of the wizarding world, first applied in the Wizengamot trial against both Grindelwald and Dumbledore after their famous duel."

The undulating wizardry gathered behind Brunhilda held their collective breath, as the old witch concluded, "All our young are now asleep at Hogwarts with their teachers and we have no idea how to wake them up. Many of them were on the evacuation path but they never made it out of the grounds. Admit the truth, Dolores. If that is not a threat to our future, I don't know what is."

All reporters were frantically taking notes. More witches and wizards pressed into the courtyard from all sides, making the Dementors and Umbridge stumble backwards, towards the door. The heat of the living bodies prevailed over the unnatural chill of the creatures that had guarded Azkaban.

Wizengamot trials did not happen often, the most known ones in recent history were held after the first fall of Voldemort to judge his followers. Those trials required the presence of more than a half of Wizengamot Members to make them valid. But a trial requiring the presence of all Members was only held once, for Grindelwald and Dumbledore, and a full Wizengamot trial _open to the public_ was unheard of in wizarding history.

Umbridge could recognise a battle lost, but she was still very keen on winning the war. She contented herself to nod, slightly, her face wearing the same complacent expression as that of her Patronus cat. "Very well, Brunhilda. The proceedings will start at 5 pm and not a moment earlier as the representatives of the Ministry Prosecution Service need to prepare their case. A defence counsel for the accused may come forward. If no one volunteers, one will be appointed by the Ministry and we will also provide all necessary administrative support."

xxxxxxxx

The extraordinary evening edition of the _Daily_ _Prophet_ and the _Quibbler_ was sold out, printed again and sold out once more that evening. Fortunately, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black enjoyed the benefit of a permanent subscription. Harry Potter had to hex away two wizards for trying to steal the newspapers in front of the invisible door to Grimmauld Place 12, and threaten one witch with the troll leg umbrella stand, before he had time to Accio both papers, and sink back into the greenish depths of the Black family mansion.

The front page exhibited the dead body of Voldemort, in full size, in black and white, without any text or movement characteristic for wizarding photographs. But on the second page there was a picture of a much more yellow than usual Severus Snape, holding a woman with loose, dark chestnut colour, curly hair, traced with unique gold and silver strands, and blue eyes that could have been watery green. The woman occasionally smiled. Harry did not need to be a Seer after witnessing the heated discussion between his godfather, a portrait and a ghost to see the obvious.

The woman was Sirius's sister.

The title screamed in black ink, still fresh and smelling on print, leaking magical lead, " _Death-Eaters or Heroes? by Rita Skeeter, special correspondent_ "

The text told the story in the most flowery manner of Skeeter's sketchy Quick Quotes Quill: " _The Ministry apprehended two prisoners after the fall of You-Know-Who: Severus Snape and Val Peverell were found in each other's arms. They are the only two persons who remained both alive and awake after the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was subject to the all over attack of the You-Know-Who's forces. The Ministry claims they are both Death Eaters and that they cast the spell, which put every wizard, witch, and magical creature still alive in Hogwarts after the battle to Unbreakable Dreamless Sleep. Yet our reporter reveals that Mr Snape and Ms Peverell may be enchanted themselves as they seem unable to speak. None of them said a word, not even after the zealous Ministry employees submitted them to hours of torture by the Unforgivable Cruciatus and Imperius curses. The Ministry personnel justified the use of such curses by extreme crimes these two dangerous Death Eaters have committed as it is demonstrated by the Dark Marks on their arms, as well as the allegations that Severus Snape killed Albus Dumbledore, according to oral records of a never properly registered testimony of one Harry Potter, to whom the Interim Minister Umbridge still refers to as the Undesirable No 1, at least when she believes that the eye of the public is not watchful. The Interim Minister, a witch of many certified virtues and impeccable taste in appropriate clothing (see photo on page 7 and tell us how dreadful it is in order to win 10 golden Galleons!), refused to speculate about Mr Harry Potter's whereabouts, or his possible participation in the demise of You Know Who, allegedly defeated by the so far unnamed body of Aurors._

 _Our reporter witnessed first-hand the tender devotion that the two unfortunate captives expressed for each other. They would not leave each other's embrace in a touching display of true feelings, and the Ministry had so far been unable to separate them. Minister Umbridge reached a decision to administer a Dementor's Kiss to the accused prisoners and our reporter will not miss the tragic farewell of the two star-crossed lovers, should it come to pass..._ _"_

A picture of teenage Val in a bright purple bikini on a sandy beach, hugging a thin, dark haired, good looking youth winked on the next page. Her hair had been wild and her make-up eccentric at best; a photo to make the male wizarding population drool.

" _Ms Val Peverell had already lived through one remarkably sad romantic experience in her fruitful young life. As one of the most sexy and gifted teenage witches in Brazil, she was married before becoming of age to one of the best Muggle football players ever (please note that football among Muggles, is even more popular than Quidditch among wizards). Her husband never found that Val was a witch, before he prematurely died in a car crash. Was this an innocent accident? Or did Ms Peverell already exhibit her Death Eater tendencies? One can only guess. As a young widow, she made a step back from being an unquestionable sex bomb to becoming a renowned owner and practitioner of one of the best healing clinics in the entire wizarding world in São Paulo, before she abandoned it and left on a wild goose chase to England, falling into capable hands of the Hogwarts Potions Teacher and Headmaster..."_

Harry couldn't read anymore when Skeeter continued describing in disgusting detail the forbidden passion of the two prisoners, carefully oscillating from defending them to calling for immediate death penalty for two such ruthless criminals. Snape's real memories featuring Harry's mother were still much too raw in Harry's mind. He could not stomach the rest of the article.

Thankfully, the _Quibbler_ proved much more useful and to the point about what had actually happened in the Ministry.

" _In these troubled times of Erumpent Horns when we finally rejoice at the fall of the You-Know-Who, we have to ask ourselves a question about how deep his support still runs in the Ministry. And we cannot take any Ministry allegations for granted if we don't want to be governed by Blast-Ended Skrewts, a plague of which is now the most severe threat to the survival of the wizarding community in Britain._

 _In a surprising turn of events, Brunhilda Crouch, known to the illuminated few as the Supreme Queen of Resistance to the Skrewts, expressed the will of the silent majority, who gathered in great numbers to hear out the Ministry statement on the death of You Know Who. The acting Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot made a historic call to all (awake) Members of the Wizengamot, urging them to convene for a trial of the prisoners, open to the public, starting tomorrow at 17.00. May the Forest Fairies shed the light of all three Hallows on Brunhilda's path…_ "

Harry moved back from the door to the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place, waving the newspapers high in the mouldy air. Mrs Black was sobbing again, and the ghost of Mr Peverell looked dishevelled, but quite happy with the turn of events. And Sirius was seated on the stairs looking totally spent, yet cradling with utmost care a crying unhappy bundle with a month old baby.

"Er…"Harry said.

"Harry," Sirius said with emotion, searching in his trousers for a wand which was not there. "Isn't he lovely?"

Without thinking, Harry handed his godfather the Elder Wand, hoping it would work for him.

Unaware of what kind of wand he was using, Sirius conjured a bottle of magical baby milk from the kitchens, in a few swift strokes of the invincible stick, warming it up with another well-aimed spell which flashed white in the darkness of the hall.

"Er…" ´Harry showed the newspapers to all present when little Alphard started drinking.

It was time for Mr Peverell to start shedding crocodile tears. Meanwhile, a shocked Mrs Black slowly regained her posture of Slytherin arrogance and addressed her son and heir.

"Sirius, I promise that I will curse myself off your wall and disappear forever. But only after you attended this farce of the trial and got your sister out. If I still remember the wizarding law correctly from my study days, in this situation any _living_ blood relative can step forward as a defence counsel."

"A public trial…" Mr Peverell muttered through his tears, "unheard of…"

"Harry," said Sirius, snatching the newspapers from Harry, "let's go to the library." He was about to head in that direction, when the screeching of Mrs Black stopped him.

"Sirius! She's not me! PLEASE!"

"Shut up, Mum. Harry and I have to prepare for this so-called trial," Sirius barked under his voice as he left the room. The newspapers were stuck between his teeth, as when he was Padfoot; and he walked very softly so as not to wake up the baby, who finally fell asleep in his too long arms.

Mr Peverell tapped Walburga's portrait frame and said lovingly between tears, "Don't worry, dear. I will help them".

The ghost glided in the direction of the library, closely followed by Harry, who lingered on purpose after Sirius left.

"Mr Peverell," Harry finally found a moment to satisfy his curiosity, "were you, er... the owner of an Invisibility Cloak when you were still alive?"

*No, Harry, that was Ignotus Peverell the First, one of my and I believe also your ancestors since you lawfully inherited the Hallow. I am his direct descendant in female line and my mother gave me his name because it was customary in our line for all male children. I am the 14th male child in that line! Besides, when I had my gift I had no need for a cloak to hide what I was doing."

"Oh," said Harry.

"If you allow me a question in return, I noticed you were carrying the toy which belonged to my other illustrious ancestor Antioch, when you borrowed it to Sirius. But what did you do with the stone of my old uncle Cadmus?"

"How do you know?" Harry asked with concern.

"I am a Peverell, Harry, I've always known about the Hallows. _I_ was the material Voldemort's first Horcrux was made of. And I know better than anyone what Albus was after and what ultimately killed him."

Harry blushed and responded, reluctantly, "Er... I dropped it before facing Voldemort. Somewhere in Hogwarts."

"Well, Harry, it looks like you were the Master of Death for a single moment, maybe you are one still. Tell me, does it mean anything to you right now?"

"No" said Harry truthfully. "All that matters now is to wake my friends."

Ignotus beamed with a huge, transparent smile, when Sirius's excited voice from afar intervened in their conversation, obviously after digesting the entire product of Rita Skeeter's evil imagination. "If she's truly my sister, what could she possibly see in that awful greasy git..."

"Sirius, Snape is nothing like that, you don't understand, I didn't have time to explain everything to you!" Harry disagreed, hurrying to the library. "He's not what I thought, he's a Half-Blood Prince! He..."

"Prince?" a bony face of a woman with silky,  _washed_ black hair flickered in Sirius's mind. Apart from the nose and the unhealthy face colour Snape had, the resemblance had been stunning. _Vanna_ , he remembered. _Could Snape be a relative of my great-great-grandfather's lost love?_

"Prince McMillan!" Sirius shouted at his flabbergasted audience who didn't understand a thing. "Good Merlin, the madness truly runs deep in this family! We just have to repeat the same mistakes in all generations. Let's dig out the Princes family tree, I'm quite sure we must have it somewhere, they were pure bloods... I thought that they had died out like the Peverells, then again, _I_ was never the most assiduous student of wizarding genealogy..."

Sirius's son lay on his back, on an old shabby couch next to his rambling father. With both little arms raised up above his tiny head, he was relaxed as if he had been carefully tucked in a light blue cot, filled with lace by his mother's loving hands. Harry concluded that, indeed, Alphard was a lovely baby.

xxxxxxxx

The Wizengamot was in session. The room was already half-full but more participants kept coming. Umbridge was getting goose bumps provoking her patience from the thud of so many fast arriving feet.

The two prisoners were brought together to the high seat belonging to the accused in the middle of the circular room. Ominous, a thunder of feet from the visitor's gallery threatened to spill over like an earthquake, barely contained by a common desire to hear the proceedings and determine the truth. The prisoners ended up seated way too closely, as if their beings had somehow become intertwined. Clad in black, they would look like lifeless stones if it wasn't for a strange faint glimmer in their eyes, and for the woman's dishevelled but still very beautiful hair.

Umbridge read a long list of outrageous crimes attributed to the prisoners, careful to omit any allegations as to who was responsible or not for the You-Know-Who's demise. Mrs Crouch acknowledged the accusations and pronounced a protocol question, "Who will speak for the accused?"

That query was supposed to be a mere formality required by the law as surely nobody would qualify. Snape had no living wizarding relatives, and Umbridge was very proud to discover and confirm in a very short time that Ms Peverell's father was a mere ghost, so he could not be considered a living relative. And all professional wizarding attorneys, rarely needed in normal times, depended on Umbridge's pay-roll in the Ministry.

Umbridge was about to appoint the official defence counsel from the Ministry as was her right to do, when a deep voice echoed from one of the last rows of seats, high above on the top of the amphitheatre.

"I will!"

The Dementors for some reason swerved towards this person who stood his ground, tall and solitary under the dark ceiling.

"State your name and grounds which give you the right to speak for the prisoners," replied Mrs Crouch. "Only a professional attorney or living kin not guilty, nor accused of any crimes at the time of the process may speak for them."

A wizard in simple broad cotton robes came forward in long strides, amidst gasps and surprise of the enthralled public, stating calmly, "As a holder of the Order of the Merlin First Class for the outstanding bravery in the fight against Voldemort, it should be beyond doubt that I am neither guilty nor accused of any crimes at present."

"But you were awarded the Order posthumously!" Umbridge squeaked as a little girl, remembering a dance with the grandfather of the young man in front of her, which left her breathless long time ago.

"A ghost or a dark creature such as Inferius cannot speak for the accused, only a living wizard or a witch," said Mrs Crouch calmly.

The would-be-defender continued descending slowly down the stairs, passing through a flock of Dementors as if they could not hurt him at all, until he faced Mrs Crouch. "I am a living wizard. I have returned from the Veil of Death and found myself in Hogwarts, after the battle. I saw Voldemort dead, and I witnessed the Unbreakable Sleep of our kind. I intend to use all means necessary to learn the truth of what happened."

With that he took Mrs Crouch's hand and let her feel the warmth radiating from his body, "If you cannot prove me dead, I am entitled to speak by the law."

"But… the accused are not your kin…." peeped Umbridge.

"Sirius Orion Black," Mrs Krouch acknowledged solemnly, gripping Sirius's hand, as though she was still not certain whether he was alive or not, but as if she was ready to believe him nevertheless. "State your kinship with Severus Tobias Snape and Val Peverell."

"How are the children named in my family, Brunhilda?" Sirius asked calmly.

"You are named for the stars, even wizarding children know that. I warn Mr Black to stop holding this Court in contempt or he will be removed from the room," Umbridge said fiercely, gesturing towards the Dementors. "Neither Severus or Val are names of the stars."

"By all the stars and all the skies I swear," stated Sirius, "that Lyra Walburga _Black_ is my sister, daughter of Walburga Araminta Black, as I am her son. "

"Outrageous!" shrieked Umbridge.

Val looked up at the newcomer for the first time with mild interest, but her attention immediately returned to Snape next to her.

"There is your own Ministry birth certificate proving that," Sirius said mildly, handing a yellow scroll he got from Peverell to Brunhilda Crouch.

"As I swear that Severus Tobias Snape is my brother-in-law by the old marriage rite of touching the eyes, which my sister and he performed of their own free will after the battle, so help me Merlin," Sirius vowed and explained further with happy malice in his voice. "The Blacks and some other pure blood families have been known to use it to pledge everlasting love for centuries as _Dolores_ will surely know. She once tried to blackmail my great-great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus to perform it with her, after feeding him a very strong brand of home made Amortentia love potion, of course, but her potion making talents are not that high, so it went all wrong and-"

"Outrageous!" gasped Umbridge, fighting to catch some air, pink as the fluffy blazer she was wearing.

"The Crouches have used that marriage ritual, occasionally. The Peverells were known to use it," confirmed the Acting Chief Warlock Crouch.

"The Princes have used it," said Severus Snape, coarsely, speaking for the first time since he got bitten by a poisonous tropical lizard which posed as a giant snake.

Sirius could have kissed Snape for confirming all of his, Harry's and Peverell's far-fetched and much too fast invented theories with a single sentence, if he wasn't so keen on beating him up first, providing he ever managed to liberate Snape and his sister from the mess they so nicely got themselves in.

"Well, my great-great-grandfather could not perform the ritual with you, Dolores, even if your Amortentia was any good and not causing only mild diarrhoea, because it can only be performed once," Sirius finished his line of thought, enjoying profoundly how Umbridge changed colour from pink to bright red, infuriated.

The air in the room was thick from the curiosity and excitement of the crowd. The House of the Wizengamot had not been that full in the times that could be remembered. The feet started stomping on the benches, slowly and then in a faster pace, rhythmical, unstoppable, accompanied by a single demand of many voices.

"The truth," they were demanding, "the truth, the truth, the truth!"

"The truth is," continued Sirius "one of many important truths we have to determine here if I may say, that my great-great-grandfather pledged himself to Vanna Prince, the great-great-grandmother of Severus Tobias Snape, but they separated, and later on they had children in different relationships. But the sacred nature of their bond, which Phineas Nigellus honoured with his love until his dying day, makes Severus Tobias Snape my distant cousin."

"Madam Interim Minister," Mrs Crouch declared solemnly, deciding she had heard enough. "As the Acting Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and in the light of extraordinary events that have taken place recently, I am inclined to grant the request of Mr Sirius Orion Black to speak for his… kin. I am sure that you agree that we all want to learn the truth."

Umbridge stuttered, "There is no proof that he returned from the Veil, shouldn't we first inquire…"

"Dolores," Sirius smiled irreverently from ear to ear, remembering all useful lessons of old Phineas Nigellus Black. "Where else have I come from? Perhaps from an illegal time travel mission riding one of your cats?"

The public laughed and Umbridge dropped her opposition, silently signalling her agreement to Mrs Crouch, horrified as to how the most illicit and most secret experiment of her family could have been known by anybody _._ She would bid time and then crush the insolent young wizard back to Azkaban where he _belonged,_ together with his precious relatives, if that was the last thing she would do.

Sirius knew he succeeded. And for the first time since their abrupt parting, he was overwhelmed by grief for the loss of Phineas Nigellus Black, regretting profoundly that he would never be able to take his great-great-grandfather for a tour to see the stars.

When Brunhilda motioned for Sirius to come forward, he pronounced his first official demand as the defence counsel. "On behalf of the accused I propose this trial to be adjourned until both the prosecution and the defence can perform a thorough investigation at Hogwarts in order to lool for evidence of what had truly happened. I request free access to Hogwarts for this purpose."

"Granted," ruled Mrs Krouch. "This trial will continue in 5 days with no further delays possible. The prisoners will stay in custody until that time. Mr Black may speak to them if he so wishes."

"I have a final request that the prisoners be transmitted to my house for this interview. Ministry Aurors or any other personnel may escort them there and back again, immediately after the close of this hearing. But no Ministry staff will be present during our talks."

Umbridge wanted to say something but was interrupted by a vague " _miaou_ " that came from Sirius's throat.

"Granted," thundered Mrs Krouch with conviction one would not expect of such a small witch. "This trial is adjourned."

When Sirius turned around to leave the room, the public emitted a joint exclamation of amazement. His sand coloured robes opened when he walked, and revealed a carrier with a sleeping young baby, attached tightly to his chest. Sirius leapt out of the Wizengamot chambers, straight as a young tree, gently supporting the head of his son.

He crossed the corridors and the courtyard, and he came out in the streets, registering the Peverell&Son apothecary shop sign as he went, feeling bitten by the jaws of the reporters and the people who didn't fit in the chamber during the hearing.

He refused to answer any questions, but he took good care to be all benevolent attitude and smiles in such a friendly way that his denial to tell them anything only served to increase his aura of mystery and righteousness in everyone's eyes.

It was late in the afternoon and the city cooled down despite that it was summer. Sirius took a breath of a dirty evening air of London, and felt immortally happy for the shortest of moments.

 


	25. Contrition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Bellatrix briefly becomes a fluffy character in a Muggle fairytale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.

At the late hour of the afternoon, the canal was peaceful, the waterfront next to it deserted, and the nearby bridge strangely inviting. A narrow line of pavement bordered the water, waiting for a lonely cyclist or a passer-bye. Reflections of distant street lights from the motorway played on the water, scintillating and never at standstill, vibrant as life could sometimes be.

Behind the bridge, the canal joined another, and a big old fashioned wooden dam helped the orderly exchange of waters, creating a small waterfall and a large lake on the place where the two waterways intersected. An elderly man in pink shorts walked laboriously, attempting to jog, from the direction of the dam towards the motorway, looming above and far ahead. He was followed by a small grey and yellow, very old looking dog.

Bellatrix glided forward, her feet waddling and pedalling in the murky shallow water, enjoying its pleasant summer temperature. A sight of small fish attracted her attention and then she paused to see her mirror image on the shiny flat surface for the first time; a collection of ruffled grey feathers, somewhat elongated neck, a soft fluffy head with a moderate size beak and pointy black eyes. A completely unfamiliar sensation overtook her, an unease immeasurable and extraordinary real. She tried to speak but she only emitted a weak _quack_ , hurting her swimming skins on a floating piece of wood, which resembled terribly her own abandoned wand.

A family of swans swam on the canal next to her, perhaps preparing for the night's rest, or simply passing the time, not caring about a witch lost, a Muggle jogging, or a stray dog.

Bellatrix couldn't begin to fathom why a smooth black stone, which she felt in her hands when she hit the ground at Hogwarts, struck down by a merciless spell of an offended mother, would do this to her. Every inch of her new soft body of a bird still hurt from her crawling through the Forbidden Forest towards the Hogwarts castle, putting to test even her own considerable tolerance to pain. She had been many things in life, but Animagus was never one of them.

She didn't want to be a bird on the lake, and the beauty of the surroundings poisoned her heart. She prayed to the living magic, the only thing she remotely believed in, to take her to the place where she needed to be. Provided that there was one.

But the hour was getting late and the exhaustion too great for any feat big or small. The swans made harmonious circles on the water, calm as oil, relaxed in each other's company, like good colleagues after a hard day's work, ignoring her, a bird still grey and lacking elegance, unable to carry out the correct swimming pattern.

Bellatrix was compelled to tuck her head under the wing and try to get some rest. Sleeping outside of water suddenly appealed to her, bird or not. Carefully she stepped out and felt much colder then she expected when the pleasant warmth of water under her feathers was replaced by evening breeze and inhuman chill.

A tremendously old man in untidy brown robes was lying under the bridge, sound asleep. Three long hairs adorned his scalp, apart from them completely bald. His face looked wrinkled as freshly tilled earth. When she came closer to the man, she heard an immensely relieving familiar rustle of long black robes, dirty from the battle, but hers nevertheless. Her robes and her body, battered as it was.

Turning back she saw a young grey duck, still floating without grace among the swans, its feathers unruly and dull, trying to follow the majestic white birds that swam with confidence over the gleaming water.

“Where am I?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

“Oh my, that’s an interesting question!” piped the old man in a voice of an old woman waking up. “I believe that you have something that belongs to me, a black stone. I have to ask you to give it back now. In return for this favour I will answer your questions the best I can.”

“Is this... what comes after?” she said realizing she must have died in the battle.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. The proper question is: what do you want this to be?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know anything any more.”

“What did you want to do before you ended over here?”

Bellatrix remembered dancing, intoxicated, in a pair of strong arms, way too young and innocent for her, followed by a whirlwind of her own very vague plans of what she should do next in her life after Voldemort. The plans that started off clumsily with a spontaneous rash decision to wait for Hermione Granger and to absorb back the curse she used to torture her, just like an experiment that it could be done. Reversed. Even while doing it, she couldn’t explain to herself clearly why she chose that course of action.

“I am ashamed of what I want,” she said curtly, remembering removing straw from her black hair, and the sweet exhaustion of love being made.

“Truthfulness is a difficult thing,” said the old man “I, Cadmus Peverell, should know about it. Your reply was admirable.”

“Wait, Cadmus, like a character from the Deathly Hallows bed-side story?” Bellatrix asked, amused, forgetting her personal issues for the moment.

“Yes. And you ended up like a character in a Muggle animal fairy-tale, except that for you there will be no happy ending. How sad, is it not? For one who had such perspective!” his words rang cruel but no less true.

Two of the grown-up swans stuck their heads in their feathers for the evening rest, while the young _quacking_ bird continued swimming around, without a predictable path, drifting aimlessly.

 _This is me_ , Bellatrix understood, _I never became a swan. I never lived up to my true potential. All the wrong choices, all the wrong choices,_ she thought, _an overgrown infant, unfinished, an ugly duckling, a possibility of achievement lost forever._

Wordlessly, she handed a smooth black stone back to the bald old man.

“Here,” he reacted, “I can fix this for you as you might still need it.”

Having said that, he handed her the wand. It was hers, soaked wet, but mended and reacting normally to the grip of her hands.

“Thank you,” she said, automatically. The long-time forgotten good behaviour lessons were difficult to ignore in company of perfect foreigners for a pure-blooded witch, Death Eater or not.

“You didn't happen to see Antioch now, did you?” he asked.

“I don't think so. The only other person I saw here was a funny old Muggle in pink shorts, running with his dog,” Bellatrix informed, discovering that her voice had lost its typical giggling pitch. It was now much more normal for her age, deep and velvety, if a bit hoarse; as if she hadn't spoken in years.

“Good,” Cadmus smiled. “So Antioch is on his way as I suspected. One last question before I let you go” he said lifting the stone in her direction. “You didn't happen to see recently anywhere a rather large crystal bubble with capacity to turn?”

Chuckling at the memory of Snape hanging upside down and turning beautifully, Bellatrix scratched her curls and said, uncertain, “Bubble? You mean a sphere? In Malfoy Manor maybe?”

The black stone emitted a dark purple cloud, dominating Bellatrix' conscious and turning it into mush. There was no knowledge, there was no power left. Only the emptiness of the mind.

xxxxxxxxx

Charlie was having the strangest dream about an old man in pink shorts, walking his ugly yellow dog alongside a river.

“Wake up,” the man said and the dog barked. “It's time to go.”

And then his entire dream caught fire, causing him to wake up abruptly in great discomfort; he'd fallen from his bed to the floor.

It was the hundredth time he had been having dreams of fire since he left the Burrow and returned to Romania. Using the international Floo Powder, he decided to check on his parents and see if they were all right. An international Floo call further exacerbated his worries because contrary to any normal times, there was not a single magical soul present in his parents' house, which was entirely left to the mercy and the good care of the garden gnomes.

With cold dread in his heart, Charlie dressed up and went to the dragon dwellings way before dawn. A huge gentle blue female was peacefully sleeping. Her scales reflected the lingering moonlight in the very last hours of the night. At least Betty didn't seem to feel that anything was wrong.

He was never one to believe in hints and prophecies. But when he patted Betty on her back like a dragon care professional, careful to avoid her bite or a jet of fire, a vision of his brother Fred lying dead or dying in Hogwarts, mixed with an image of a beaten up woman in dark dress robes floated in front of his eyes. Charlie thought he was never going to sleep again. Or not so soon. He took a broom, flew to the Bucharest International Portkey Centre and grabbed a first Portkey to go home.

xxxxxxxxxxx

At 17h00 sharp, just when one of the greatest wizarding trials in recent magical history started, tea with biscuits was served to all Members of the Wizengamot as it was customary during sessions. Precisely at that moment a dark figure crawled through the streets, approaching fast an abandoned fashion shop in one of the busy parts of London.

The mannequins in the windows had seen better times; one was clothed in rags and another one clad merely in dust. A figure made a whirling movement with the dark robes it wore, before creeping into a seemingly empty building, transfigured into a pond of thick black liquid running under the locked door, which was surprisingly enough bolted both Muggle style and with magic.

The reception of St Mungos hospital was empty and so were the corridors. Only the signs were still giving directions to the correct Magical Care department to the unwanted visitor. The nefarious black pond re-materialised into a ruin of a woman, and continued moving with great difficulty, more staggering than walking, towards the ward for incurable patients, who have suffered magical damage beyond the point of repair.

Bellatrix wondered where all wizards and witches went. Not that she went to St Mungos often, but a few memories she had were speaking of a place bustling with crowd. It had been _noisy_ when the great-uncle Arcturus died in the hospital, after a long, contagious disease he'd somehow contracted from his Muggle neighbours. The healers present had whispered that he would have made it, had he allowed them to use some Muggle medicine on time...

Bellatrix remembered waking up from a strange dream on the grounds of Hogwarts, among many corpses. She managed to slither away far enough to be able to Apparate. The idea of the path she wanted to embark upon took a clear shape in her mind, as it had never done before. And now, this... _Could the same spell that attained Hogwarts have finished off the entire wizarding world?_

 _No, perhaps not._ Pulling the door to the Magical Care department for incurable patients she was searching for, first she saw a wizard who had lost his mind, the impostor, Lockhart, a disaster for the reputation of the wizarding race in Bella’s opinion and unbelievably enough, a _pure blood_. The existence of Lockhart, who was such an unbelievable preposterous coward, warranted orderly extermination of pure bloods in certain cases, if Bellatrix was the one deciding who was going to live and who was going to die. Luckily, she wasn't, and Lockhart was not the foremost on her restless mind.

He was there and he was awake. _Good. Then so must be the others._ Bellatrix always had a strong sense of purpose and hated not achieving her goals, more so now that her life was _spared_ where others were taken. She touched her chest where the curse hit her, the curse of _his_ mother, but there was no trace of harm.

On the contrary, the plump red haired woman was laying sprawled on the warm ground, as if in peaceful sleep, when Bellatrix woke up. _The evil always survive,_  Bellatrix thought bitterly while struggling to get up and on her feet. Only then, her glance was caught by a pale, long body of her former Lord and lover in the middle of the field of the dead. _Not the worst ones, not this time, by Merlin!_ She exhaled, relieved, not sparing him another look.

 _Or perhaps I was the worst one,_ she thought then, _I turned against my own and became a monster for nothing but a lie. I lived for a lie and I almost died for a lie... Wasn’t cousin Sirius also loyal to illusions of a different kind? Tricks of lightness, not more real than the dark ones, all of them but wind._

St Mungos was at peace that day and she liked it. It was going to help her focus. She wasn’t sure her resolve would suffice for what she was about to do, and she didn’t want to fail. The couple she came looking for was seated in the garden under the blossoming tree, contemplating the world, unaware of the change. She approached them from the back, stunned them proficiently, and forced a vial of sleeping potion into both of their mouths. It wouldn’t do for them to wake up before she was quite done with them.

Bellatrix took a duelling stance in front of the woman, Alice, Alice Longbottom and spoke, clearly announcing every syllable, “Revoco incantatem!”

The pain came slowly and in waves. Bellatrix revelled in it, the stronger it became. It grew exponentially, wildly, cruelly, topping her previous injuries until she barely remained conscious and fought for dear life. She felt as if her limbs were separating from her body one by one, plucked out by an invisible force. Darkness approached from the corner of her mind. She cackled and desired for blessed insanity for a moment, but she didn’t yield. She was not yet done. With satisfaction, she noted that Alice Longbottom started breathing evenly. Even her hair acquired a healthy glow it didn’t have before.

Bella positioned herself in front of Alice's husband Frank, asleep on the ground next to his wife, and pronounced the same incantation, calling the unforgivable Cruciatus Curse she had cast on Frank and Alice long ago back to herself, taking back the pain she had given them, briefly brooding on the images of their boy, the almost Squib boy, slicing off the head of the snake, ending the war…

The pain came again. This time she didn’t enjoy it. She finally knew exactly what kind of evil she inflicted on others and how it must have felt for them, wrenching, mind-tearing, plain wrong. She wanted to weep but tears would not come. Madness would not come. There was no relief. She was being burnt alive, eaten from the inside by the invisible flames. The green parchment and the quill fell from her robes. There would be no forgiveness and no future, just like she deserved.

And no end to pain.

Bellatrix started whimpering and crying. Her skin puckered and dissolved into a myriad of small wounds as if hit by a deadly plague. She lost her vision by the time when the lungs of Frank Longbottom started to rise and fall in peaceful sleep of life returned to normal, next to Alice, his wife.

The garden was empty and the air saturated by a sweet blossom scent. The couple slept tenderly on the ground next to the crumpled limp figure in black robes. The rise of the afternoon wind seemed to have woken the birds, chattering loud, and lifted an empty green parchment from the soil towards the skies.

One of St Mungos owls noticed the flying parchment. She was a hard working specimen who never messed up with delivery. Cursing human stupidity and imprecision with important letters, she cautiously caught the parchment with her feet, noticing the Quill which fell out of it on the ground. Clutching both things, the owl nervously flew away.

xxxxxxxx

Charlie stood in front of the place where the Peverell shop should have been, feeling like the biggest coward that had ever walked on earth.

As soon as his mother of all witches killed his… _one night stand girlfriend  -_  as Charlie finally had the audacity to admit the fact - he abandoned the battle, and the grounds, haunted by the last look the Death Eater gave him, thinking of the place where he could hide and forget.

He must have Apparated over at the Peverells in his extreme distress, which grew more with every passing moment. He was there, yet there was no shop, or pub to be seen, only an abandoned construction site surrounded by a decaying fence, and a poster announcing the grand opening of a place called Lyra’s.

A few unhappy customers discussed in front, pondering where the owner left and regretting the good times they had over there. Charlie decided to approach them, and one of them shook his hand as Muggles were wont to do. Charlie’s vision blurred. When it cleared up again, he was standing with the Muggles in front of the closed door of the pub. He waited for them to go away before discreetly drawing his wand.

He aimed at the door.

“Alohomora,” he said and the wooden barrier gave in.

The chairs were neatly piled up on top of the tables and the stage was empty. And the sight of the neatly arranged clean surface of the bar, where he had met Bellatrix Lestrange, made Charlie want to cry.

The jars with dragon fire were stored like half used bottles of strong liquor, hanging upside down behind the bar counter.

“What should I do?” Charlie asked, forgetting all the pertinent instructions he got from Ignotus Peverell about how to use them. He waved his wand aimlessly, hopelessly, in front of the entire length of the bar, as if he was chasing every souvenir of the Death Eater from his thoughts. And, to his delight, one of the jars shone immediately in blue light. _I should open it,_ he thought. The cap could not be removed so he tried to turn it using force, two times, counter clockwise, by chance. When he did that, everything went dark.

Then, in the darkness, blue.

Light blue scales colour of the sky. On top, two people he had never seen, a woman, old and proud, and a bald old man with only three hairs on his head, similar to the man in bright pink shorts from his dreams. They were descending steeply through the roof into a deep hall full of witches and wizards, towards a pure white object emanating great evil. An eruption of fire all of a sudden engulfed everything and Charlie could not see any more.

When the vision was over, Charlie felt much more stupid than usual. The only thing he could recognise was left behind in Romania. Betty. So he remembered his instructions better, finally opened the jar glowing with blue light, and waited for Betty to come, his back turned to the door. That was how a small black owl found him and dropped a piece of empty green parchment on his head, startling him. Seeing what it was, first he grabbed the parchment, and then the owl, focusing on the destination it came from. In a blink of an eye Charlie successfully Apparated to that place, where she had to be. Not the owl, nor the woman from his vision of blue fire, no. In that place there had to be the woman from all his dreams of late.

He didn't dare to hope he would find her alive.

She lay like dead in the garden of St Mungos, resembling a rare black butterfly, squashed.

She didn't look at ease, or in peace; her skin was ruined with many open wounds. Her face was untouched and Charlie's heart constricted. He was not at all prepared for what it would do to him to see her like that. When he had gone to Romania after their last encounter, he half expected to read a note in the _International Daily Prophet_ edition about her death, whenever Harry Potter defeated Voldemort. Bellatrix would surely die with her Master, and he expected not to care about it. What they could have, could not be. That was it.

 _Except that I was totally wrong_ , he thought, _I was selfish and a child when I drew boundaries I would not cross._

And that was how Charlie Weasley learned love was a tricky thing. It happened rarely, but when it did, it knew no borders.

“Wake up, please,” he said, but she couldn't hear him.

“You are late,” a voice said, “they have it already.”

“I don't care,” Charlie said, forgetting any semblance of good manners.

“Oh but you do. You want her to live, I suppose?”

This caused Charlie to turn around and face the man in bright pink shorts from his dreams. The small grey and yellow dog wanted to lick the unconscious woman, but Charlie scooped her body protectively in his arms. She was light as a feather, as if her life force had been sucked away.

“What do you want?” he asked, his usual good temper replaced by anger and regret.

“Not my choice, this,” the man laughed. “Not my decision. It was _you_ who told her you could never love her when you were already head over heels about her, didn't you?”

“How do you know? Besides, she's a Death Eater, a criminal!” Charlie tried to argue.

“So what?” asked the man.

Charlie had no answer for that.

His attention turned to the couple sleeping on the ground. He immediately recognised the Longbottoms from his father's stories. Their dreaming faces and rosy cheeks were bursting with good health. “How?” he asked.

“You should ask her that, if she makes it,” his companion said. “This was not my doing either. My name is Antioch. And if you do want her to live, you should help me retrieve the Crystal Time Sphere before the idiots in the Ministry decide to put it to good use.”

“What do I have to do?” asked Charlie. “Just name it.”

The flapping of wings approached noisily from nowhere in particular. A powerful jet of flame burned the surface between Charlie and the Longbottoms leaving Charlie and Bellatrix on the same side of the fire divide with the man called Antioch.

“Ignotus taught you well how to tame his pet, how thoughtful of him!” Antioch laughed.

“Who?”

“Ignotus Peverell,” Antioch said clearly. “My brother.”

xxxxxxxx

The Ministry Aurors didn't waste time preparing for the trial. One of the first places they searched for evidence of Val's and Snapes's wrong doing, immediately after the first unsuccessful hearing was held, and the defender of the accused came forward, was Malfoy Manor.

A huge Crystal Sphere was found. The backward tracing of spells performed on it proved that Snape was somehow in it, or doing something evil with it quite recently. Auror Dawlish had it shipped to the Ministry Atrium after the prisoners were temporarily moved to the house of Sirius Black.

The Dementors were stationed on the unfortunate sculpted figures of the Muggles oppressed and dominated by wizards, who were built into the Ministry fountain under orders and following the design made by Voldemort and his followers. The former guardians of Azkaban rejoiced at the arrival of the glass bubble and the few staff present after working ours ran away. It was soon discovered that with the presence of the Crystal Sphere, no Patronus was strong enough to withstand the Dementors. More intelligent Members of the Ministry staff immediately assumed that the Sphere was dangerous despite is tender, silvery white coloration and benign looks.

Still, no one dared say a word because even if Minister Umbridge for her part was never among the most intelligent witches, she certainly was one of those superior officials who provoked biggest fears in their subordinates.

She adored the effect the Sphere had on strengthening the Dementors, after the experience that the crowd was not afraid of them earlier that day, and ordered its immediate transfer to the court room. By that time there were only the night guards, the Dementors and herself left in the Ministry. The guards reluctantly obeyed her orders, careful to jointly levitate the cursed _thing_ without _touching_ it, sweating in fear from the hungry Dementors who followed them closely all the way to the Wizengamot chambers where the trial was scheduled to continue in five days. The guards were so much affected by their undeserved ordeal that they ran away as soon as their job was done and went home, leaving the Ministry unguarded. Dementors, however, did not move from the object of their adoration.

Umbridge slept in her office that night, on a couch she installed for that purpose, nervously caressing the fur of one of her fat white cats. She had happy dreams of Severus Snape and the impertinent woman healer being kissed by the Dementors, while the enthusiastic wizarding crowd sang Dolores's name in praise. Her dignified picture made the front page of the _Daily Prophet,_ meriting the long deserved headline _“Dolores Jane Umbridge, our Saviour_ ”.

xxxxxxx

 _“Cadmus,”_ a voice called in his mind. _“How did you get back?”_

“I have my stone back, “ Cadmus admitted. “And it's only temporary. Antioch came as well. We have to help you to come to terms with Death, little brother.”

 _“I'm not your brother,”_ the voice said, _“I'm your nephew many centuries removed.”_

“That's what you think,” said Cadmus, “that's what you think.”

 _“The Death,”_ said the voice of Ignotus Peverell in Cadmus's head, “ _he gave more gifts._ ”

“Yes he did, little brother,” smiled Cadmus. “And one of the most recent ones was just picked up by the brave forces of the Ministry of Magic.”

 _“They took the Veil of Death?!”_ the voice worried.

“They would, but they didn't find it. You wouldn't tell us where the Veil is, Iggy, now would you? You know that there is a way to remedy your situation. Just die, little brother, dying’s all that it takes. It will be the fourteenth time and if you give in to Death he will let you rest in peace, instead of being reborn again and condemned to the life of solitude.”

 _“My life was not solitary. And it was my own! I am not your brother!”_ the voice insisted.

“If you say so. And why is it then that your girlfriend married another and let her family have you killed?”

There was no answer for a while.

 _“I will move on to the other side when I see fit,”_ the ghost said. “ _Say that to Death, your master._ ”

“But you know that you will live again, unless you submit to his rule or unless another soul vouches for you in the face of Death, ready to give up its own place in the realm of souls? And who would do that now, little brother? My wife, the woman I brought forth from the dead with the resurrection stone did not do it for me.”

 _“Still, Antioch and you turned to this guardian business,”_ said the incorporeal voice.

“We did. It's not very rewarding. But it's still better than serving Death all the time.”

 _“I admire Death's perseverance. However, I don't care what he wants. Uncle Cadmus, what does the Ministry have, if not the Veil?”_ the voice asked boringly.

“If you don't mind, we will take care of it for you. We have your blue pet now and full confidence of a very confused enamoured young man, you know.”

 _“Cadmus,”_ the voice thundered, _“if you were not dead for centuries, I would kill you now. Where is young Charlie?”_

“Find him if you are so smart,” Cadmus said with a laugh, and turned into pristine, crystalline white smoke similar to the substance used to create Pensieves.

Ignotus Peverell nervously tossed and turned in his sleep. For, effectively, and contrary to everyone's opinion, ghosts could dream, a feature not yet confirmed by the most known authority on the matter; the unique book “ _On Ghosts and Magical Coats of Armour”_ written by Beedle the Bard, before he went bonkers and started collecting fairytales and writing them down.

When Sirius and Harry left to the Wizengamot, Ignotus fell asleep in a chair from exhaustion. and Walburga Black carried his immaterial body to her bedroom. She didn't sleep in it since her own body had died there, in the throes of dragon pox. She returned for her portrait as well and hung it as close to the bed as possible because she couldn't live out of it for very long.

So Ignotus unknowingly shared a large bed with a magical portrait being, who exhibited and nervously combed a loose cascade of long colour changing hair. Brushing it had always helped Walburga to collect her thoughts. She spied on her former lover's dreams and wondered what vouching for one's soul in the face of death could mean in reality.

Before they learned the news on Val and Snape’s detention, Harry told everything about the Deathly Hallows to Sirius, and his mother listened, pretending to be asleep behind the curtains which hid her portrait in the hall. It didn’t take long for Walburga Black to put two and two together and discover that there was even more to the father of her daughter, then his image of Muggle loving crazy musician and a former dimension shifter.

So she read through all the dark magic scrolls concerning Death, and understood that the man she fell in love with in her youth, was not merely a shy colleague from Hogwarts. He was a being from the legend, the rightful owner of one of the Deathly Hallows; the Invisibility Cloak which was passed on to Harry Potter. Her Iggy was the wizard who cheated on Death by hiding from him and deciding to go with him only when he wanted, free of fear. And that made him dangerous. Ignotus Peverell became one of the few exceptional souls in history, which the Death could not let die, for he would be humiliated.

Such souls were born and reborn again until they would succumb to the fear of Death and only then would they be allowed to join the realm of the dead, resting in peace on the other side. Unless... unless... If only…

Walburga looked deeper in the scrolls left by Phineas Nigellus Black, which had only recently became accessible in one of the kitchen cupboards placed in the library, after her grandson Alphard was born, as if by his birth, a particularly dark curse no one could undo before, was lifted from the collection. The writings described how a soul could give itself willingly to the powers ruling the happily ever after to save another. Walburga found out early in her life, observing her father, how men in general didn't like to be defeated, and wizards were no exception to the rule. At least in that, Ignotus could be compared to most men. If vouching for one’s soul in face of death meant giving up her soul for his, Walburga was ready to do it, so that he could die undefeated and humiliate Death.

She could think of no better way to prove her affection to him. It remained to be seen if her soul could be admitted by the powers of the afterlife, bitter and evil as she had become later in life. She assumed that at least some of those powers must be benevolent and look for the unspoiled purity of souls. Not for women who ruined their children’s lives and made them pay for their own frustrations, leaving them only stupid T-shirts as their mother's legacy. She saw what had become of the T-shirt she forgot in Iggy's pub, enchanted to belong to her daughter before she was born, and she smiled. When her daughter had no more use of it, the T-shirt helped Alphard's mother and Merlin knew that Bella who had stolen it next needed help as well. The _Bad Excuses_ were put to excellent use. Walburga wondered what Sirius and Regulus did with the T-shirts she had enchanted for them and if they ever recognised the old protective magic she had used.

Hufflepuffish as all that might have seemed; to give up her soul, the last thing she had left, for love, imagine only, it was the most cunning and astute thing to do. It was the most tortuous and the most twisted Slytherin way to win back Iggy’s heart. Before he knew what hit him.

She only had to find out how to do what she wanted done.

Walburga frowned, let her hair go, and decided to read more.

xxxxxxx

After the five days postponement of the trial was announced in the Ministry, the gathered crowd of witches and wizards headed home, each leaving some personal token to guarantee a good watching place in the Wizengamot for the next time, a pointed hat, a used potion bottle or another accessory. Some went so far that they even left their wands. The collective hysteria made all the hearts beat faster with expectation, equally eager to redeem or to condemn the prisoners. They all desired to uncover the mystery of what happened in Hogwarts, excited with the base need to witness the spectacle of human blood and suffering, or to admire the heroes they would never be.

When the healers and patients finally returned to St Mungos in the evening, they discovered a confused couple alone on the garden bench in the wing for incurable patients. The ground next to them looked scorched, but everything else was as usual and orderly as the coming and going of seasons.

The man gently squeezed the hand of a woman, who smiled in return and whispered touching the grey hairs on his head: “Frank, where are we? I had a most peculiar dream… “

“We were attacked by the Death Eaters and then.. then… I don’t know, love. But I believe that we are going to be alright.”

Cleopatra Longbottom, Augusta's sister, rode to St Mungos on a broom she hadn’t used in a hundred and twenty years as soon as she received an owl informing her of the miracle. She even forgot her usual extravagant hat made of dead animals; a Christmas gift from Augusta. As she hugged her nephew and his wife, a lump formed itself in her throat. Neville and Augusta were fast asleep with the rest of Hogwarts, and the old witch didn’t trust the Ministry to resolve their situation at all.


	26. Hundred and Twenty Seconds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a new method of incapacitating the Dementors is invented

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left a kudos or a comment ))

 

The prisoners were unceremoniously unloaded in the hall of the Grimmauld Place 12 by two Ministry workers, who immediately abandoned the premises, excusing themselves with undefined urgent business. The employees shook the working day dust off their traditional robes and Disapparated from the street, not hiding their eagerness to return to their families after an unsettling day, in order to conspiratively tell them every single detail about the sensational trial. Several Dementors were left behind, hovering in front of the entrance, waiting hungrily and impatiently for the interview of the guilty with their wishful lawyers to be over.

Dementors knew very well that every witch or wizard was guilty of something.

There was always some reason for punishment, and kissing humans tasted so very sweet; their undiluted fear an unequalled delicacy.

Val helped Severus on his feet. He could still not speak with ease after two days in jail, a bite to his vocal chords, and exotic poison running havoc in his veins. She pointedly ignored the portrait where her _mother_ should have been. Now that she knew who her mother was, she didn't want to have anything to do with her. Each of her parents betrayed her in their own fashion, her father by not telling her the truth, and her mother by abandoning her to the uncertain fate when she was a baby. And if she still had her gift, she would permanently make herself walk in a totally different dimension of her two lying parents and their obscure life stories.

On the contrary, she was positively impressed by Sirius Black as her _brother_ and the way he defended both her and Snape in front of the entire Wizengamot, having no real reason to like any of them in particular. Her satisfaction died on her lips when a giant silvery dog entered the hall, scattering the Dementors and chasing them fully to the outside, before it was followed by a tall silhouette of the wizard who cast it.

Sirius immediately punched Snape neatly in the face, not even looking at Val, who, for her part felt protective of Severus and strangely offended in her feelings. Yet she remembered the amount of times she wanted to hit Severus herself when they had only just met. So she just stood there, in her ancestors' home, petrified, watching the events unfold.

“Snivellus, I will defend your sorry skin for the sake of common decency, but you will stay away from my sister!” Black launched a verbal attack as well.

At that preposterous claim, the wizard victim of his aggression suddenly regained and redoubled the energy he seemed to have forsaken in the final battle. Storming like a bull into Sirius’ stomach, Snape slammed him into the wall next to his mother's portrait without a word. Sirius immediately retaliated by pulling Snape’s feet from the ground, so that his greasy head greeted the wooden floor of the Black residence with a loud clunk.

The screeching from the portrait broke the sound of male fist fight and was heard above the fumes of adrenaline polluting the air. The words were somewhat unusual: “Stupid son of mine! I thought we were past this! Think of your sister!”

At that point the two men were rolling on the floor and Snape was enthusiastically butting Black’s head with his own, not even noticing the blood running from one corner of his sallow lips. The Potions Master stopped only briefly; probably in order to consider how the lovely exercise he was thrilled to engage in, did not require the correct use of vocal chords.

The Dementors allowed themselves to peer in through the half open door, as if they wanted to have a better look at the fight, always eager to feed on human emotion. The rawness of feelings displayed must have been a priceless treat for them, for both men profoundly enjoyed hurting each other deeply and personally, in the most primitive and direct of ways.

The house door finally slammed shut, fencing the Dementors off. A young man was revealed, emerging out of the Invisibility Cloak and gently holding a baby boy. “Sirius!” he yelled “Stop it!”

Seeing the green eyes of the Boy-Who-Survived-After-All was entirely too much for Snape, who opened his mouth in surprise only to be knocked out cold by a furious Sirius Black.

Val felt as if she just woke up from the blind trance the fight put her in. Her heart and her body ran out to Snape and held him closely in her arms, tall and thin like an awkward candle. She started shooting murderous glares at Sirius, which was still much more pleasant than having to look at the lady in the portrait, or at the ghost of her father, who finally made it to the hall from the inside of the house.

“Er… Right. Let’s all go and have a civilised talk in the kitchen. The Ministry didn’t give us that much time,” Harry said. For the first time in his life he felt like an adult pushed into a position to mutually reconcile a bunch of angry, pouting, grown up children.

Sirius finally listened to reason in the voice of his godson and mindlessly levitated unconscious Snape in the right direction. Val walked next to him. She kept away from any close contact with the others, as if all other members of their company suffered from an incurable magical plague.

Everybody was soon seated at the long rectangular table where Alphard Phineas Black saw the mouldy light of day for the first time. Mrs Black was safely hung on one of the walls. Since the recent changes in her life, the portrait would drop from the wall and it could be transported elsewhere, or hop from place to place on its own, for short distances only. Harry was again the first one to speak.

“We are family. And more of our family is asleep at Hogwarts. I suggest we share all we know about what has happened there, before Ministry apprehended Lyra and Professor Snape.”

“My name is Val” interrupted Lyra Walburga Black. “I've always hated my given name.”

“Welcome to the club,” muttered Sirius, “so did I.”

And for the first time, Val grinned to her brother. “Regulus hates his too.”

“Regulus is really alive?” Sirius could not believe his ears again. He yearned for that piece of information to be confirmed and reconfirmed until he could hold his brother once again.

“He didn’t tell you? My father, I mean. He's worse than Dumbledore when it comes to keeping secrets. I don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of them. He came to save Regulus when he was 18, and we both returned for you when you passed through the Veil. My father never told me you were my brothers. Nor who was my _mother,_ ” Val concluded with ultimate distaste in her voice.

“I also hate our mother,” Sirius had to agree whole-heartedly. The newly united siblings didn’t notice how a distressed ghost was trying to breathe life into a whimpering Walburga Black, who passed out in her portrait, after listening to the conversation of her children.

“Er… Back to the point,” said Harry, “Val, we were only asking your father about Hogwarts so far, and the rest, I mean, his _affair_ hum… I should say relationship with your mother and you, it's something Sirius and I just overheard them talking about… Er... Val, please, your father told us you cast the spell that put Hogwarts to sleep. Is it true? How can it be reversed?”

“Nice to meet you too, Harry Potter,” said Val cynically. “I did cast it. However, it should have been broken in the middle of the battle because that is when I gave up my ability to shift dimensions. I have no idea why it is still holding. Maybe he can figure out something, the smart little Slytherin…” she kissed Severus' brow until the man stirred. Harry had a decency to look away and Sirius stared at the couple in complete shock.

“Severus, my spell is still holding. And it cannot be. When I… when we…”

“Val, I'm so happy for you!” interrupted her father, puzzling Harry and Sirius to no end. Even little Alphard gave him a curious look, with the total lack of understanding of what the ghost was rambling about. “Congratulations! I was so afraid you were going to live with your gift for the rest of your life.”

“It is the Veil,” Severus spoke darkly with the last, ragged remnants of a once silky voice of a hated Potions Master, probably happy it didn't betray him in front of Potter and Black of all people. Harry and Sirius startled at the familiar sound of it, as if they were caught cheating on their Owl exam in Potions. The godson an the godfather exchanged glances of hope that Sirius's sister would come to her senses some time soon, when it came to her choice of dating.

“The Veil is inanimate!” Ignotus protested. “The dimension shift has to be sustained by a wizard or a witch."

Snape blinked and gave a look of longing and resigned peacefulness to Val. People who know him, but there were none who did, would read this look as saying “ _Why am I even wasting my time talking to these dunderheads?_ ”

Val volunteered more explanations to Harry in a gentle tone. “We used the Veil to enhance the spell to cover the entire territory of Hogwarts. I assume my father explained to you what a dimension shifter does. Even so, with the passing of the power of the shifter, there was no other who could hold the spell together that we know of.”

“The Veil possesses a powerful magic of its own,” muttered Snape murderously. “Perhaps it is animate…”

“Oh my,” Sirius reacted with sudden understanding, etched deeply on his pale once handsome face. Harry glanced at him worriedly. “Ariana is sleeping with almost half of her body in the Veil. And she possesses a great deal of uncontrolled powerful magic!”

“Ariana has learned to control her magic very well since she arrived here, and not thanks to you,” Snape snapped.

“Since when are you and my fiancée on first name terms?” shouted Sirius.

“Your fiancée? She’s way too smart to fall for you,” said Snape indignantly. His last word drifted into an undignified squeak when his damaged vocal chords finally decided to call it a day.

“SHUT UP!” Harry could not take it. “We have won over evil! Do you want us to lose to human stupidity? The Ministry will never wake them up on time! We've got to do something!”

Val said worriedly, “Control or not, Ariana is as powerful, or even more powerful than Albus used to be. She may have sustained the effects of the spell in time by connecting her magic to the Veil. Father, wasn’t there something in your research on time travel, something about ending spells made using a Veil of Death?”

Mr Peverell beamed at being addressed by his daughter again. His cheerfulness was short lived because when he considered the meaning her question, the burden of the truth made his non beating heart sink.

With poise, he spoke of a terrible fact. “Ending the spell is not a problem. The problem is preserving the effects of the spell in a long term. If we forcefully separate Ariana from the Veil, she and all the sleepers might die. So could Sirius and their son. Anybody who had any contact with the Veil might die, even you, Val.”

Ignotus needed a minute to overcome the effect of his latest realization about the imminent danger for his only daughter, before he could bring himself to continue. “Val didn’t physically enter it, but she used it twice, when she cast the spell in order to bring Sirius back, which had brought Ariana here instead, and more recently to protect Hogwarts.”

“What do you exactly mean?” Harry asked patiently, placing himself for precautionary reasons as a ping pong net between Sirius and Snape, who both started looking desperate and inexplicably pesky, each in his own way.

“Whatever the Veil does, it is temporary,” continued Ignotus. “There was lots of research in making the effects of the Veil permanent, but nothing conclusive was found. There were only a few known veils with manifest time travel properties in the History of Magic and very little is known about them. They cannot be put purposefully to any use. They have a mind of their own. And since occasional swallowing of wizards appears to be evil, the artefacts were popularly called the Veils of Death.”

“Excuse me,” said Harry, “but didn’t you just mention that Val brought Ariana back through the Veil. That sounds to me like it had been done on purpose.”

Ignotus shook his head denying Harry’s assumption. “Blood magic was successfully used on several occasions to bring back close relatives from the Veil but it has never happened, to my knowledge, that another person was called forth.”

Snape pointedly looked at the baby in Harry's arms. The look was so intense that everyone followed it. Sirius took the protective stance in front of his son, wand at ready.

“Indeed,” Ignotus smiled. “She didn't tell you either she was pregnant, did she?" he said to a blushing Sirius. "That _could_ be an explanation for what happened, the blood of the child's father. But not necessarily. Please believe me. I do happen to have some experience with Death.”

“Dad, who has more secrets, you or the Dumbledores?” said Val, fed up.

“That's not important now,” said Ignotus. “The Veil we're currently dealing with was not known until Gellert Grindelwald found it, disguised as a Muggle Nativity painting, and gave it as a present to Ariana’s father. We learned that much from Ariana when she was with us. Once she confided in me that her father purposefully left the Veil as a heirloom for Ariana. And old Percival strikes me as a person who rarely did anything without reason. Even less so when it concerned his daughter.”

“That's why she borrowed my widest apothecary robes, claiming it was the fashion of her times, and stole my favourite magically stretching red T-shirt to wear under them,” Val smiled remembering Ariana's odd behaviour. “I can't believe it. I'm an aunt! I have a daughter myself and she still tricked me.”

“Dumbledores...” whistled Walburga Black, “they always have a hidden reason for everything.”

“Mum, shut up,” said Sirius half-heartedly. “You have no idea what she's been through.”

“Perhaps. But at least you found a witch who will put you to your rightful place, son,” Walburga said, nodding her approval to her potential daughter-in-law.

"I'm returning to Hogwarts,” Sirius stood up, determined and single-minded as usual. “The answer is there. I can feel it.”

And without further ado he stormed out of the kitchen, through the back door, and into the small garden. Seconds later they heard the roaring of the motorcycle.

“I suppose I should go after him to check what he’s up to,” Harry said tiredly, before fixing his green stare on Snape. “Professor, for what it’s worth, I'm glad that you’re alive.”

Snape remained perfectly impassive and mute when Harry addressed him, as if he hadn't been forced to share his most intimate memories with a teenager he resented, convinced as he was at the time that he would not live to experience the shame of meeting Harry again.

"Mr Potter," said Mrs Black, "I would be most grateful to you if you would follow my irascible son. But perhaps you should leave my grandson in my care. It would not be the first time."

She summoned a cradle, which came buzzing from one of the upper floors of the Black family mansion. Passing right through the ghost of Ignotus Peverell, the flying cradle made him whirl and float high towards the high ceiling.

"There," Walburga said, and Harry dared lay down Sirius's son among the greenish looking baby sheets, next to the unique fluffy toy; a miniature stuffed elf's head similar to the original dead ones, mounted on the walls above the mansion's stairway.

The baby babbled something to the toy, and his grandmother started singing in a low voice. The tune was soft, but it had a vivid pace, and Harry was certain it was Muggle. Somehow it made it easier for him to part ways with little Alphard.

“Harry, before you go after Sirius, could you do me a favour?” said Val, grabbing the opportunity to speak. “Go first to the Ministry and sneak into the Minister’s office using that cloak of yours. There is a portrait there from one of my illustrious Peverell ancestors, Ignotus the Second, or Third, no matter. I never bothered to learn which one. They all look exactly like my father when he was still alive. It's the first painting on the right hand wall when you enter. Tell him to go to his other location as we agreed to do in a case of trouble. He could come up with some information to help Severus and me in our process if Sirius fails to defend us in his frenzy to help Hogwarts and save Ariana.”

"Val," Harry risked a question of his own, "why go back at all? Why not run and hide somewhere tropical?"

Snape shook his head in slow motion, and Val just took his hand in agreement.

Harry nodded in understanding. Running would be easy but it didn't help Sirius in the past. They had to find a way to end the mess properly.

“Potter,” Snape stuttered with difficulty, waving his wand arm in the direction of the Dementors waiting in front of the house. Harry immediately understood, wondering if sharing memories did this to wizards.

“Here, Professor,” he said, handing him the wand he won from Voldemort in the final battle, but the older wizard refused to take it, his face unreadable.

“I thought you might not want it,” Harry smiled, offering his own wand instead, despite that it had been broken. “And I guess it is only fair I give you something of my own after everything that has happened. I repaired it with the Elder Wand when Voldemort was gone, but it's still not perfect. Please keep it for me until you get your own wand back. It shouldn’t take long. And don’t hesitate to defend yourself if those Dementors try anything. It has always been a very good wand for casting Patronuses…”

Harry didn’t wait for Snape’s reaction, knowing perfectly well that there wouldn’t be any. In their mutual history, any gratitude was too much to ask for. He turned towards Mrs Black who was by that time out of her portrait, proudly holding Sirius and Ariana's baby in her long bony arms. Alphard Phineas Black touched his grandmother's shining, many-coloured hair and bleated happily at times.

“So you have really looked after him before…” said Harry.

“Kreacher and I both did for a while. So did Ariana's brother Aberforth, but they are all now asleep in Hogwarts,” was the final contribution of Walburga Black to the general conversation, this time in the grave, offended voice. “You said it yourself. We are _family._ Act on your words.”

Harry Potter reluctantly left the youngest Black in the care of a portrait and a ghost, accompanying Val and Snape back to the main entrance hall. The Invisibility Cloak was in his hands, ready to use.

“We'll get both of you out, so whatever happens, don't worry,” said Harry before getting out. “Umbridge didn't call me Undesirable No 1 for nothing. I’m quite good at achieving whatever she finds inappropriate and irritating.”

“I know you are, Harry” said Val, unconvinced. “But still, do contact my ancestor. The more we have in our favour, the better.”

xxxxxxxx

Snape estimated that approximately hundred and twenty seconds would pass between the moment when Harry walked out until the Dementors would glide in to apprehend them and escort them back to the Ministry. Another activity not requiring the use of vocal chords, or much time for that matter, occurred to him as the best course of action. He pinned Val to the wall where the portrait of Mrs Black used to hang, and kissed her deeply, ruthlessly, just like he wanted to do for the past two years, and never found the courage to proceed.

They were too busy with one another to notice Ignotus Peverell getting out, storming right through the walls; and even busier to realize that the portrait of Walburga Black followed him at safe distance through one of the ground floor windows. The young master of the house was neatly tucked in a net on her chest, weaved magically of her own long hair. Ignotus and Walburga were likewise so focused on their own endeavours, whatever they were, that they didn't even notice the highly disreputable actions of their daughter.

Val was fervently hoping that Harry was right when the kiss caught her entirely by surprise. She always surmised that Severus kept a lot of things bottled up. Yet the unbottled, not speaking version of him just surpassed all of her wildest expectations of what it could be like when they could finally be together.

She ignored the subconscious reminder of her healer's experience, whispering to her that the tiny issue of a soul magically cut in two had to be addressed, eventually, for Severus to survive further, and live a normal life-span without any entirely unnecessary suicidal thoughts and major complications.

It was already a miracle he recovered from the poisoning due to the healing nature of their bond.

Gently, swiftly, lovingly, for they had so little time, Val guided his fingers all over her body, right where she needed them to be, bold as always in her affections, enjoying his compliance combined with loss of restraint. She wished they had only ten minutes more.

And if Harry was wrong and this was going to be their end, and even if the Dementors had kissed her at that moment she wouldn't have regretted a single thing, because all the mistakes she'd made in her life led her right where she had to be.

Into the arms of the wizard who purposefully divided his soul only to trick evil and defeat it.

Approximately in the 119th second of their time together, Snape suffered a change of heart.

“Muffliato,” whispered the Half-Blood Prince, remembering the spell he invented to hide the conversations of his youth from others, and turn them into a cacophony of sound. He did it in an intricate wave of the battle hardened holly and phoenix feather wand, at the precisely calculated moment when the Dementors approached, expecting to cause blind terror on their path. Snape hoped that his intelligence was not going to fail him and get them both killed.

And then he allowed himself to feel, uninhibited, not hiding anything, not controlling the intensity of his feelings for the first time in the long years since he started spying on Voldemort.

The Dementors were at loss. They could not hear or otherwise discern the prisoners they were supposed to detain and accompany back, although they knew they had to be there. They could _smell_ them. But the old dark magic of the house enthusiastically enhanced Snape’s spell to confuse them, doing what that house knew best. Protecting its own.

For twenty seconds they were trying to look. Someone was ensuring them that there would be no more exploded cauldrons, stupid students, and patients demanding impossible treatments. Or there would be, but they would not matter. Then they felt an exquisite emotion, a unique flutter, a slow burn, a thirst unquenchable, a hunger growing, a prayer answered after years of loneliness and utter nonsense. All that and more floated towards them on the dense cloud of vicious joy. Boundless happiness hit them as a biological weapon, an emotion stronger that any Patronus, leaving them well fed, and fed all over again, until they could not suck any more sensations. They collapsed undone and out of consciousness in the hall of the Grimmauld Place 12.

When Snape ended their kiss, Val's black robes and the T-shirt she wore under were off, and his normally lank hair was a mess. _It worked_ , he thought proudly, pouring even more love from his damaged soul towards the woman in his arms, noticing with satisfaction how all Dementors had been overcome by the onslaught of happy thoughts, of good memories being created and not merely remembered. Not wanting to offend her by using Legilimency, he suspected Val must have been projecting some positive feelings of her own, because it was she who pushed him up the stairs, all the way up to the dusty room in green and silver.

 _Regulus's room_ , he thought, grateful they were not in the room which belonged to the other despicable _Black_.

 _“_ A wedding night then,” she said, “I didn't expect us to have one so soon.”

“Ms Peverell,” he tried to mock her, but his voice failed him yet again.

“Professor Snape,” she retorted in kind, but her eyes betrayed her, pale and so very blue like clear water. For the first time since they met, Snape actually believed she did love him, unlikely as it was, and that the marriage ritual of old she initiated had not been only the last elaborate joke she played on him to get even.

“It was a good trick you pulled down there with the Dementors, but now it's about time to finally shut up,” she told him and he listened, taking in her words, drawing her close, wrenching her hair loose from the inevitable hair pin she put back on as soon as they were out of the courtroom, pulling her jeans down, getting the hell out of his robes until mouldy air was the only thing between them.

Never letting him go, Val backed all the way to the wall and finally, finally wrapped her legs around him as it occurred to her she could do when he kissed her downstairs. She found support for her feet on a piece of furniture behind them, trying to convince herself real hard that Regulus, recognisable on many photos on the wall, wouldn't mind if he knew how his... _sister_ and old friend abused his former sanctuary.

It was like a tide washing over her. She started it, and he wouldn't stop it until she was trembling undone in his arms. Regulus's bed seemed like a great place to continue until he cried out in her embrace, weak and vulnerable, whole for a fleeting moment.

And had there been Dementors in the proximity and had any been left conscious after the scene they'd witnessed in the hall, they would not have only fainted in their exaggerated avidity to consume all the good memories stored in a human soul.

They would have simply died from the intensity of pleasure offered for the taking.

 


	27. Fiendfyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where an old house cleaning spell of Walburga Black does miracles for the family

Contagious and sticky sorrow sailed with dark grey coloured wisps of clouds over the rooftops and turrets of Hogwarts, announcing the sunset of a warm summer day. The weather turned with the world, as if both were unsure whether the things were going to be just fine or terribly wrong.

Sirius successfully avoided a few Ministry personnel present in the field, all of them looking clueless and innocent under the darkening sky, as if the worst thing that could happen to a witch or wizard was to work overtime. The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall mirrored the sad weather of the world, showing only dull grey sky with a lonely spark of white.

Was there any hope?

The warmth of the day would suggest it; the unnatural coldness was gone from the world with the passing of Voldemort.

Sirius had no time to dwell on the notion of hope. A brief check on his friends, a touch on their faces; it all witnessed they were still alive.

And still fast asleep.

He approached the gargoyle leading to the Headmaster's office, a place he hadn't visited since the end of Harry's 4th year, hoping the portraits could lend him some wisdom, even if he was not, nor would he ever be the Headmaster. The fact that the door opened without password made him unbearably sad. It was a sign of everything that had already gone seriously wrong.

Dumbledore was no more.

Snape was not there either and Dementors were keeping him company, as they once did for Sirius. For the first time in his life, Sirius did not, could not, peacefully hate the man. Yes, he learned to tolerate him because they were not children any more, but he had always despised him nevertheless. That attitude had irrevocably changed in a second. And not because he seemed to be the wizard of his sister's choosing, but because after giving in to the impulse to hit him, and receiving some beating back, their quarrel was somehow exhausted and blown away, losing importance in an overall order of things. Sirius woke up to the truth of what Dumbledore tried to tell them long time ago. They fought on the same side. And it was not in Sirius's nature to abandon his brothers in arms to their fate, greasy hair or not.

The spiral staircase was depressively grey just like the rest of the castle, not quite dead yet, but almost about to die. The office was quiet and the portraits were asleep. _It would have been too easy, wouldn't it, had they been awake_ , Sirius concluded his chain of thoughts.

He passed his fingers along the frame of his ancestor Phineas Nigellus, who was missing from his portrait, and was entirely gone from his other place on the wall in Grimmauld Place as well, where not even the canvas remained. Sirius was secretly hoping that his ancestor was sufficiently evil and complex to have damaged his soul permanently, so as not to suffer from the dreamless sleep of Hogwarts, like Snape or Harry. Ignotus told them that Harry was spared because he only became whole again when Voldermot killed the Horcrux he had involuntarily created in Harry's soul; and by that time the dimensions have already been completely shifted in the preparation for the battle.

But wherever Phineas Nigellus was, awake or not, he was not there.

When he turned to leave, a soft voice called him back. "It's you," said the female figure in the painting of his ancestor. "You came back."

"Ariana?!" Sirus cried out, his tired heart skipping a bit.

"Well, yes and no. I am only a portrait of her in young age that hung at Abeforth's. I'm sure that you're familiar with the concept of the magical portraits keeping the personality of their model from the time that they were ordered. I believe that Aberforth had had me painted according to his memories of me," explained the painted Ariana to a confused Sirius.

"You and I have never met but I can see why she likes you. I gave my portrait place to her for a hideout and I stayed with Phineas ever since. It's been a remarkable experience," Ariana blushed at her last words and Sirius had a very clear idea of what kind of companionship she shared with his forefather. He inwardly cursed the flirtation prone genes of the Black family for sowing new conquest victims even among portraits. Worse, it seemed that even his _mother_ had such moments in her youth, judging by the emotionally wrecked state of Ignotus Peverell whenever he would mention her or dared look at the old hag for that matter.

"Help me! Where is Phineas? He could be awake as well," said Sirius, fighting his disappointment about meeting the wrong version of the woman he loved.

"One portrait of him was with Harry Potter's friends on the run. I'd look for him there. It could be in the bottomless bag of the young witch with plenty of hair."

Before he could run out, she called him back, "Wait! Under the table, right here in front of Dumbledore, a letter! Take it! She must have dropped it in her distress when she left."

Sirius picked up the parchment, crumpled and open on the office floor, wincing at the signature. _What right had Grindelwald?_ He forced himself to read, and the words written in screaming red somehow dampened the anger in his mind, forcing him to focus.

He read out loud, " _They say that one day the Veil has to return to the place where it was taken from. Then all the good deeds wrought by the angels will come true. But no one knows where that place is…_ "

 _That could be it!_ Sirius hoped, trying to remember the exact words of a very similar rambling old Percival Dumbledore had pronounced to him in a trance of a Seer. _The never found clue to maintaining the effects of whatever this particular Veil does!_

"Thank you!" Sirius exclaimed and kissed portrait Ariana on her cheek. He hurried to the Great Hall in search of Harry's friends. Soon he retrieved a rolled painting of Phineas Nigellus from Hermione's bag. Unrolling it, the portrait yawned and said. "It was about time. I thought that no one would ever find me."

"Great-great-grandfather, you have to tell me about the Veil."

"What Veil?"

The issuing conversation revealed a sad fact that the portrait was ordered by Arcturus Black according to his specifications, at the time when Phineas Nigellus was still a Headmaster of Hogwarts. He had no knowledge of Percival Dumbledore, nor of the Veil, nor of anything useful at all for the predicament of those trapped in the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry. Sirius's heart sank and he fell to his knees in the middle of the Great Hall.

"Sirius," his ancestor called after him, trying to be helpful, at least, despite his playfully obnoxious nature, so different from the conflicted and diligent old man devoted to his research that Sirius learned to know and appreciate. "You came back from the past. That much is certain. Did I by any chance let you carry a small object from me?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Sirius shouted. "My friends are dying! And so is she… So is she… All my life for nothing! I should have died in Azkaban!"

"Sirius, calm down," Phineas said. "Remember, I must have told you, if you truly did meet me, what is the worst defect of the Blacks?"

"Pride," Sirius answered without thinking.

"Then set it aside for once and listen to me, please! I did give you something, didn't I? I had to. Think about it! Forget your own grief and you will see clearly what has to be done."

"You forced me to leave you in the past to die! You cursed me!"

"I have no doubt that my future self did it before he died even if I don't have any recollection of those events. But there had to be an object, my life's work..."

When the portrait was sure that Sirius was finally paying some attention, he continued in a grave voice echoing in the hollowness of Hogwarts, sounding like rain falling on someone's grave, "There was a prophecy about our family, long time ago. You know that our life span is short, much shorter than that of other wizard families. Just look at the Dumbledores, living forever…"

"The truth is that approximately a thousand years ago our ancestor Araminta Meliflua introduced a law on hunting and killing the Muggles and Muggle borns in the Wizengamot. It took all forces of the wizarding world at the time to bring her down. She was the first Dark Lady in the history that had already known several Dark Lords, and her name was later on deleted from all the magical community archives because it was too horrible to remember. Our own family tree shows a wrong version of her life span, and there is a large omission concerning her siblings as well. Luckily Araminta's life was rather short and she never actually managed to have her law widely accepted and fully enforced..."

"The leader of the opposition which brought down the law, and ultimately Araminta as well, was called Lyra, Lyra Black. Araminta and Lyra were sisters. To defeat her sister, Lyra was forced with a terrible choice. She had to curse her own family using Blood Magic, which reduced the life span of every family member by approximately 100 years. It worked a bit different from person to person because Blood Magic is not the most precise of all things. The curse could not be lifted. Araminta turned 50 that year and died immediately as a result of the curse. Many other family members died, even those completely innocent of Araminta's rebellion. The Muggles burned the bodies and called it a victory. This, Sirius, is a true story of Lyra Black. I've never told it to anyone before."

"Couples were left childless and died from grief. Lyra was banished from the family and was the first family member blasted from the family tapestry by her surviving relatives. Araminta's age was doubled to make her look victorious."

"Having low expectations of life, the Blacks felt cheated for a natural privilege of wizarding population – long life. They turned dark and continued the practice of banishing any family member who held opposite ideals until all forgot about Lyra and the real reason how they came to support the dark arts at all. Wizards starting to whisper that dark magic was in our blood and that we endorsed it for no reason at all. We were just evil, weren't we, Sirius? Lyra herself died in exile, in sickness and poverty, far away from Britain, somewhere in the plains of Central Spain."

"When I was a child, I was hiding in the attic just like you did and I stumbled upon Lyra's diary. Her last words before being banished and departing to die were, 'I need some space to breathe before the curse takes me as well. I wish there was another way for our children and the children of their children.'"

"I kept her diary as my favourite novel, never heeding its message until it was too late. I took to the family ways and I murdered Vanna's unborn child, blinded by jealousy."

"I worked for the rest of my life to find the way to lift the curse. I wanted the Blacks to become a normal family again, not more evil than any other and with the life span free from the curse, and only subject to the whims of fate like anybody else's. Sadly, I knew that my work was in vain as I could never lift the curse."

Sirius was becoming saturated with the verbal diarrhoea about the things that Phineas may have considered important, but which were simply of no consequence. Sirius parted his ways with his family long ago. It was impossible to go back. Instead of reacting aggressively as he would have before falling into the Veil, he felt somewhat sorry for the old man and for having to cut him down. "I'm so sorry about all that, but I really have other things on my mind right now than my cursed family and its well-being."

"Sirius, you're dead wrong on that! I've known for a while now that if you came back to your time, it would mean that you are the only one that can lift the curse! It is your duty!"

Sirius looked flabbergasted and not convinced at all, and Phineas continued speaking with unwavering conviction.

"Before Lyra retired to die, she was visited by a true Seer, a witch called Lucia Clarividente, who left her with hope. She recorded her words as she remembered them in her diary. Listen to them, please.

 _'_ _Time will go on and rains will fall_

_many years from now,_

_a star of Godric Gryffindor,_

_will find the way around._

_This star shall die and yet return_

_when darkness loses hold_

_carrying the destiny_

_of all Blacks to be born.'_

Lyra owled the words to her still living family members before she truly died, but they wouldn't believe her. Yet since that time we've all been named upon the stars, as a symbol of hope, except for one star, Lyra, whose name was cursed and forbidden. The true reason for it remained forgotten on purpose, and different stories were told to those eager to listen about the disgrace of others."

"Her life was transformed into a horror fairytale for wizarding children about a girl who betrayed her family to Muggles to be burned alive. The sappier version of the same story favoured by Rita Skeeter tells that afterwards, or before, versions vary between Monday and Friday editions of the tabloids, Lyra ran away with her lover, as so many Black women did after her, our poor Andromeda being but a latest... example..."

"Mum is the latest example..." muttered Sirius, his feelings about the discoveries regarding his mother's motivations in the past a complex mumble jumble. _What would I have done in her place? Would I do the same?_ Sirius didn't have any answers. _Would I make my child hate me in an attempt to spare him from sharing my fate?_ He wished Harry or Ariana were with him to help him sort things out. But that was a selfish way to think and waking up Hogwarts was simply a top priority.

"What?" asked Phineas.

"Nothing," said Sirius. "Please, go on."

"Sirius, since time immemorial, no Black was sorted in Gryffindor, much less returned from the dead in the times where darkness receded. If you find it in your heart to remember what you carried through the time and open it in front of the family tree, a miracle might happen. And maybe it will help you create your own miracle here at Hogwarts."

"Well, I'll soon return to the dead again, if I don't find the way to deal with the Veil."

Phineas smiled, sensing the doubt conquering the younger man. "You have always known that you were different from us. Is it so hard to accept that there was a reason for this?"

"I used to yearn to know the reason," said Sirius sincerely. "But that boy died many years ago. Eaten by Pixies, you could say."

"Before he could die of dragon-pox, the most common death cause in the family," Phineas snorted and Sirius laughed, glad that the version of Phineas, painted on Arcturus's orders, still had his ancestor's peculiar dry sense of humour.

He rolled Phineas Nigellus and stuffed him in the pockets of the large robes he was still wearing, coming from the past, determined to ignore everything he had been told, as well as the galloping conviction forming in the back in his mind that his ancestor might have been telling the truth. Sirius's strength of mind turned on the edge of reason when he finally indulged himself and followed his heart. In long strides, he hurried  to the Room of Requirement to check on Ariana.

She was laying as he had left her, perfect in her sleep. The Veil was immobile and looked like the innocuous idyllic Nativity painting again, benevolently overseeing their life together in the small house above the sea, in a time that probably didn't exist any more. Still the object appeared _animate,_ with the aura of peace and quiet on a cold winter night.

Looking at the Veil had the strange effect on Sirius. He sat next to Ariana and took hold of one of her hands, mentally searching for the meaning of a word miracle, uncommon among wizards. He remembered his lessons from Muggle studies: miracle was a term by which Muggles explained to themselves the workings of magic which they didn't possess. All wizards knew from childhood there were no such things as miracles; only magic existed. Yet Percival Dumbledore seemed like a competent wizard and he did study the concept of miracles. Why?

Sirius had never paid much attention to Muggle fairytales in which a handsome prince would kiss a sleeping princess waking her up from her enchanted sleep.

Even so, he was compelled to kiss Ariana softly, as he had never had the chance to do during their short time together. She may have been unconscious, but her maddening, fresh and pungent smell that made his heart turn was still the same. And maybe it was just his impression but her lips almost moved to kiss him back. He felt desired and at ease; a reassuring lightness flooded his soul.

"It's only me now, Ariana," he said out loud to shed a semblance of order into his thoughts. "Harry did his job. I feel it should be me resolving the mystery of the Veil. After all, I caused all this mess by falling into it. But Merlin help me, even with Grindelwald's letter and your father's visions, I still have no clue about what exactly I should do."

So he moved to touch her lips again, as a starved man in need of sustenance. The motion caused an object to fall out from his robes and roll onto Ariana's body. The wandering cube ended up caught by the bulk of her motionless hands, which were folded gracefully on her chest. Sirius took it and turned it in his hands. The artifact looked harmless. He remembered blind Phineas Nigellus holding the small wooden cube devotedly in his hands, in the long evenings when they worked together on a travelling machine. Here it arrived, his lifework, back to the future with Sirius Black.

And the trial of Sirius's sister was about to continue in 4 days for crimes neither she nor Snivellus committed, while Hogwarts was still in deep sleep...

 _In desperate times, desperate measures_ , Sirius thought when he returned to Grimmauld Place 12 half an hour later with a small wooden cube squeezed tightly between his hands. _Let's check this out. We've got nothing to lose._ The night had fallen and hid the unconscious, non-corporeal bodies of the Dementors in the hall, and a glittery, black female T-shirt left behind by a just married couple which slept blessedly in Regulus's old room.

Sirius didn't have to know all that just yet.

He felt uneasy approaching the family tapestry, expectant but not sure what he would find, not convinced that he was doing the right thing at all. He took the cube out and stretched it forward until it touched the name of Phineas Nigellus in the tapestry. Nothing happened.

He thought he could hear faint voices coming from the cube when he definitely heard a panting of a living being behind him.

"Sirius, you have to destroy it!" said Harry Potter emerging from under his cloak, standing right behind him. "I've been running after you to Hogwarts and back. That thing has a soul! A piece of it in any case! Don't you hear the voices? It must be a Horcrux of one of your ancestors! They were no good, you said it yourself."

"Horcrux…" Sirius whispered, crestfallen, believing his godson instantly. "Of course. I should have known. How do you destroy them?"

"Well the methods I know of involve basilisk venom or Fiendfyre, we have no venom and I don't know how to cast the other…" Harry informed.

Sirius drew a deep breath. "Step aside, Harry, and close me in this room."

"Will you be alright? Do you know how to contain it?"

"I will get out after I cast the curse, don't worry," Sirius said tiredly, preparing himself to do what had to be done. He cast the Anti-Fiendfyre charm on all walls and windows of the room to protect the rest of the house from imminent incineration.

When Harry left, he attached the cube to the top of the tapestry where the Black line started and moved two steps backwards. He didn't know why he fought to hold back his tears, swallowing the enormous wave of disappointment when he waved his hand and spoke clearly as a mathematician announcing a new ground breaking formula. " _Fiendfyre…_ " He sped out of the room in a hurry. The end of his robes caught fire as he moved; a blazing fury of red and gold accompanied the Gryffindor back to his godson.

Harry put out the fire which started to consume Sirius, reluctant to use the Elder Wand but having no other choice. The wand which had been the property of Grindelwald, Dumbledore and, thanks to Snape's art of deception, never became the property of Voldemort.

Fortunately, the wand worked perfectly for Harry as a fire brigade, despite its bloody history of conquest and kill required to master it.

The room burned on the inside for hours and Sirius refused to speak to Harry. He didn't ask for his son either, and Harry curiously noted that the baby, Walburga and her ghost were nowhere to be seen.

"I thought you could not do wandless magic, Sirius, except the Animagus part..." Harry ventured into saying.

"I can't," his godfather replied, crestfallen and grey. "This was no magic, Harry. It was _house cleaning_."

When Sirius deemed it safe, he undid the charms around the room with the family tree and opened the door. The godfather and the godson slowly moved in, expecting to face a scorched green ruin; an abandoned battle field.

Beyond anyone's expectations, the effect of the spell destroying everything on its path, evil or good, could not be more different.

The room was swimming in golden light and the fire turned into a golden wind. The air smelled sharp and clean. The Black family tapestry was transformed and bathed in the same light that permeated the room; its usual green and grey coloration flickered and became intertwined with the floating strands of gold.

Sirius' name was back in the place where it was blasted from, and so was his uncle Alphard's and cousin Andromeda's. There was great-uncle Marius the Squib and all the other outcasts of the Black family further in the past, at least one in each generation. The tapestry suddenly stretched many more years in the past, and a touch to a branch would give a more complete picture with a short biography of each of the older family members, who had left this world many years ago.

Harry started reading out loud, fascinated, " _Pluto Black, the defender of Muggle-borns in the goblin rebellion of 1637. Norma Black, the first healer in history who accepted to treat Muggles from injuries caused by magic. Sirius Black, born in 1200, champion of the rights of the elves and other magical creatures, Orion Black, married to Alicia Prewett the werewolf, the first pure blood ever known to marry a werewolf…._ " The list went on and on and the number of audacious Blacks spanned all generations. The number of rebels was almost equal to the number their counterparts, who married respectable pure-bloods and did respectable wizarding jobs. In the new looks of the tapestry one could not easily tell who were the outcasts and who were the socially accepted family members in any given time.

At the bottom, a name was missing. There was no Alphard Phineas Black.

"Why?" whispered Sirius not expecting any answers. "Because I didn't marry his mother? Or because we don't exist and have to return to the Veil?"

The tapestry however, spoke. The voice came from the top, from the picture of a beautiful young woman, an exact image of Bellatrix Black in her younger days, except that she had no heavy-lidded eyes.

"Bella?" Sirius inquired, confused.

The woman laughed with joy, and the sound of her laughter rang powerful and clear like Christmas bells in all corridors of Grimmauld Place. It cleaned the dust and filled all rooms with the eerie golden light, and the fresh smell of the first winter snow, which suddenly began to fall in the middle of summer. "My name is Lyra Bellatrix Black," the lady of the tapestry spoke melodiously. "The curse has been undone and our family is whole again, for better and for worse. My death has been avenged, Gryffindor. if I can help you in anything, just go ahead and ask, and I will do so."

"Er… It wasn't me, not really" Sirius said, utterly embarrassed, unrolling the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black from his pocket. "It was him. His life work. I just attempted to destroy it believing it was the Horcrux. Not believing that he or any of you wanted to do any good."

"And Horcrux it was," said Phineas, "but made of a life willingly given, which makes all the difference. Percival Dumbledore would have died anyway. He gave me his life force to make my research transportable through time. I recorded a short biography of every member of our family, be it an outcast, a murderer or a bore. But this doesn't change that it was you, Sirius, who undid the curse, just like the prophecy foretold. You burned the curse with the Fiendfyre from the family tapestry where Lyra had first cast it, a most appropriate spell if I might say, and I should congratulate my great-grandson Orion for teaching it to you."

"It was Mum, actually," Sirius whispered. "She used it to get rid of magical infestations all the time and children had to help with the chores…"

"It was not only the spell, Sirius," Phineas continued proudly. "You have to stop underestimating yourself. It was the caster. The only Gryffindor in the family, returned from the dead."

"But that's precisely the problem, isn't it. I'm not really alive, am I?" Sirius screamed, pointing at the 1996, which was clearly recorded as a year of his death on the family tree in front of him, under a short biography describing him as " _A rebel and a Gryffindor. An illegal Animagus. First prisoner ever to escape from Azkaban where he had been innocently imprisoned for 12 years. Member of the Order of the Phoenix. Died fighting against the Dark Lord Voldemort and selflessly protecting his godson Harry Potter, the Chosen One."_

"I've been the abomination of this family since I was born! First a Gryffindor, now a monster!"

Sirius began to cry in silence.

Harry had not seen his godfather so desperate since the night in the Shrieking Shack long time ago when they had first met, dirty and anxious to take revenge on Peter Pettigrew; the wizard who framed him for the murder of Harry's parents, 12 innocent Muggles and his own.

But Pettigrew was dead now, he died just like Sirius did according to the tapestry, unable to allow harm to come to Harry and his friends at the very end.

Harry categorically refused to believe that after everything they had been through, after his own unlikely survival and victory over Voldemort, justice would not prevail. That would be unthinkable. And justice meant the waking up and the survival of all his friends at Hogwarts, and also, most definitely, some long deserved justice for Sirius Black. And this did definitely not mean the triumph of the stupidity and mediocrity embodied in such personalities as Dolores Umbridge, and Cornelius Fudge (who was also attributed a role in prosecuting Val and Snape according to Rita Skeeter's latest article). Harry believed the two should have a place in Hogwarts a History one day, and nowhere else.

"Hey, Lyra," Harry Potter started cautiously, addressing the remarkable woman depicted on the top of the tapestry. "Do you know anything about the Veil of Death? You see, Sirius has passed through it once. Then he did some time travel to come back here and there's this lady he adores, who is kind of stuck in the Veil and he would really like to get her back…"

Lyra smiled graciously, her voice fading away and echoing in the corridors. "You don't need my help for that. Sirius has all the clues to the answers he is seeking. Percival told him all about miracles before he died. Don't worry, Harry Potter. He should just go back to the presence of the Veil. With time he will find the force in himself to do what has to be done. Like he did for us."

"Gryffindor," she turned to Sirius, and her voice was like a balm for the tears which first started shining like jewels and then they were gone from Harry's godfather eyes. "If I were you, I would first look up the T-shirt you chose not to wear the night you ended up in Azkaban, the black one with the words Jump! printed on it. Regulus at least had the good sense to wear his favourite black and green formal shirt when he embarked on a suicidal mission all those years ago."

Sirius's gaze drifted immediately to the name of his brother on the family tapestry. He noticed with a heart pumping like crazy in his chest that the year of his death was gone.

Regulus was alive.

Not all was lost.

"Why the T-shirt?" asked Sirius.

"Let's say that it has a protective spell which could help you where you are going. And if now you regret doubting Phineas's honest intentions at the last moment, despite getting to know him as well as you did, then please, put your trust in me for this, at least."

Sirius sniffed the air in a dog-like fashion, as if he had just woken up from a bad dream, and stared at his family tree with rekindled hope, "I might just have an idea on my own."

On an impulse, he plucked out some of his greying raven hairs, gave them to Harry and said with mischief. "There is Polyjuice Potion in the kitchen, still old Snape's production for the Order. Use it to impersonate myself and attend the trial as me if I am not back by that time. Do whatever comes to mind to make it last as long as possible. When you see Ariana walking into the courtroom, come out and meet me to exchange places."

"Are you sure about this?"

"No," Sirius said in an arrogant manner that would impress even the most evil of his predecessors, walking towards the door.

"Sirius, the T-shirt," Lyra reminded him gently.

"Right," he muttered and in no time he was up in his room and back down again wearing a loose, black Muggle T-shirt with the words Jump! written on its back.

"Sirius, wait another second!" it was Harry's turn to act and stop him on an impulse, offering Sirius the Elder Wand. "This was Grindelwald's, once. You told me you disarmed him as Snuffles in the past, so it could work for you."

Harry never explained to his godfather all the details about the Deathly Hallows but he was really eager to get rid of the Elder Wand, or even any wand at all if he could choose, and wash the dishes Muggle style for the rest of his life. If only his friends in Hogwarts would wake up first.

Sirius nodded and took the invincible wand, not knowing exactly what he had in his hands. He wished he could give Harry his own, stuck immobile in the Veil of Death.

It would have been logical, and it could help Harry to impersonate him at the trial, but it could not be done.

They had to work with what they had and hope it would be enough.

None of them noticed Lyra nodding in approval, and laying a silent blessing charm on Sirius's and Harry's back, when they walked out of the room together like brothers, despite the considerable age difference between them.

The portrait of Phineas Nigellus looked at the tapestry with religious zeal. "Ancient and most noble Mistress Lyra Bellatrix," he told the legend of the family. "Wait until he finds out that young Miss Bella was here when Alphard was born. He will be more insane than ever."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, Phineas," Lyra replied "if he didn't succumb to the family sickness by now, I'm sure that he's quite immune to it, no matter what discoveries still lie ahead of him."


	28. The Trial and Error

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Sirius almost believes in angels

"Let me ride the dragon and I will help both of you," Antioch Peverell said to Charlie Weasley in a fatherly voice, over a lifeless body of Bellatrix Lestrange in Charlie's arms, perfectly unaware of the fact that Charlie always had to disappoint his father when he was growing up. Betty snorted and did not seem content with the proposal. Antioch's dog barked at the dragon in powerless retaliation.

"I am your only chance," the almost bald wizard continued in an _I- told- you- so-tone_ Charlie liked even less. "Let me have the dragon, or your friend will die."

"Why are you here?" Charlie Weasley asked Antioch Peverell, eyeing him with sudden suspicion, wondering why a seemingly good-natured wizard would threaten him, and what the Crystal Sphere Antioch wanted to retrieve from the Ministry so very much _was_ in the first place.

"Why?" the increasingly funny wizard in bright pink shorts scratched his head as if he could not remember himself. "To look after you, of course, to guard you. That's what we do."

"Who are you? Are there more of you? You are not real, are you?" said Charlie. "You are a voice of my mind ridden with guilt because I left her, knowing very well in my heart that she was going to die, by her own hand, or by the hand of the monster she called her Master. I chose not to help her."

Betty made a puff of blue smoke in direction of Antioch, watching over-protectively over the young dragon tamer and his ill she-friend. Antioch's arm turned transparent with  Charlie's last words, so he stubbornly repeated them, glad for the effect they had.

"YOU ARE NOT REAL!" he yelled from the top of his lungs.

Charlie could now see through Antioch's shape. He became much less material than an ordinary ghost, a thin air shaped like a shadow of a man, whose shoulders spurted a pair of huge, equally airy wings.

He turned his back on the winged phenomenon and gently patted Betty.

"Betty," he told her. "Will you help me carry her to your real master's shop? Remember, his name is Ignotus, not Antioch. They have healing stuff over there."

The dragon bent down as a sentient being, completely forsaking the incurable wildness of its race. Normally, Charlie would not believe in a tame dragon. But the times were far from normal, and his guilt had grown exponentially, to the point that he wished to die in her place, or simply die alone, and forget about everything.

So Charlie hauled Bellatrix on top of Betty, as gentle as he could, nesting together with the broken woman between two spikes on Betty's back, as blue as they could possibly be.

"Take off softly," her urged her. "You know where it is. And don't look back."

They flew towards the sun, and Charlie decided to close both ears to the frantic barking of a dog, and to unreal pleas of the white and grey cloud floating behind him, rapidly disappearing in the distance. There was no match for Betty's wings; she was a creature of magic who could fly over the ocean in a single day.

"I will find my toy back," the winged cloud called Antioch may have cried, "and you will feel the stick of destiny between your ribs before this is over!"

xxxxx

The next day of Val's and Severus's trial dawned as grey as any autumn day.

It was July but the summer had decided to hide itself so well that no one could see it.

The trial came amidst the unconfirmed rumours about the blue fury that had descended over the Malfoy Manor like a deadly summer storm, shattering all windows, mirrors, kitchenware and a collection of priceless magical objects the Malfoys were extremely proud of. Not even the Daily Prophet managed to offer a plausible explanation for the destruction. A Muggle-born witch passing by swore she saw a chubby, funny looking male character, carrying a crying baby on his chest, and a rolled oil on canvas painting under his arm, leaving the Manor, or hovering out of it, shortly after the act of vandalism was reported. Few dared to say the truth. The Malfoys had supported the dark side, either from conviction or from fear, and it was fair that they should suffer some consequences.

Only one artefact from the Malfoy's collection remained intact; the elegant Crystal Sphere confiscated by the Ministry which was turning softly in its stand in the middle of the Wizengamot chamber. The sphere was an object of unquestionable beauty, yet it was much better known for something else; the entire wizarding world had so far been unable to figure out its magical properties.

Deserved or not, no one could rejoice whole-heartedly at the punishment of the Malfoys, for all living members of the family were asleep at Hogwarts. It was the third day since Voldemort had died and the future of the great school of witchcraft and wizardry remained undecided.

So was the fate of the two prisoners, bound together on a chair of the accused, as the seats of the Wizengamot were being slowly filled under the ever watchful eyes of Dolores Jane Umbridge, Cornelius Fudge and their supporters. Umbridge noticed that Sirius Black, who had just entered the premises, lacked all of his usual arrogance and spirit. She considered that a good sign. Perhaps the texts she and Fudge paid for in _Daily Prophet_ and _Witch Weekly_ , finally served to make the public believe in their version of the truth. The woman, Skeeter, skilfully depicted a would-be hero as a mad relict of a once powerful family after 12 years of oh-so-unjust imprisonment in Azkaban. Her story caused the witch population to cry about it noisily, but the _serious_ members of the wizarding community would hopefully be way less inclined to believe in anything the odious Black had to say.

They also financed stories from the Ministry sources which told how Voldemort miraculously died on his own, from old age and experiments with evil curses. And that all the guilt for the grievous loss about to occur at Hogwarts lay upon Severus Snape, a proven Death Eater and murderer of Albus Dumbledore, and Lyra Walburga Black, a descendant of the House where all except poor deluded Sirius Black were proven supporters of the Dark Lord, (Fudge was thrilled when he learned that the witch's last name was not Peverell, because they were known for having supported the light), the owner of one and only healing establishment who treated Death Eaters according to testimony of many witnesses (mostly family of those same Death Eaters but that detail was luckily irrelevant to the process).

Umbridge could not explain, not even to herself, why she had the Crystal Sphere placed within the Wizengamot, which was turned into courtroom. She believed that she had seen the object in her youth, but she could not pinpoint the occasion. The grand dome looked benevolent, like a magical, living floral decoration in a home of  a decent well-bred witch. Dolores found it had a calming effect on the souls gathered in the Wizengamot and, above all, it also somehow strengthened the determination of the Dementors, who have returned somewhat _shaky_ from Grimmauld Place 12, accompanying the prisoners.

It was beyond Umbridge's comprehension how a thing lovely beyond all count like the Sphere could fortify such filthy but necessary breed of creatures like Dementors, but as long as it served her purpose, she did not care.

Fudge started the trial by reading out how the accused Snape and Black together cast a forbidden dimension shifting spell, which put all wizards and witches in Hogwarts into a deep sleep, leading to slow death from exhaustion, as a sign of their grief and anger at the loss of their Lord Voldemort.

 

xxxxxxxxx

Snape sat expressionless as charges were read, certain that the only thing waiting for them at the end would be a Dementor's Kiss. After all, their life and death depended on _Black_ and _Potter_ , both too direct and not enough Slytherin to unmask the joint forces of social custom, boredom and fear of change, which did not favour the believable nature of the unique story shared by Val and himself. The precious memory of their too short time in Regulus's old room made the corners of his thin lips curl in an imperceptible, smile but he would not let it show to anyone, not even to Val.

The safest course of action was not having hope.

Val just smiled at Sirius in the back rows, before fixating Umbridge with her pale blue eyes, exhibiting the defiance typical of the Blacks. _You think you can hold me here,_ she thought, _just watch me._

The room was even more crowded if possible than during the first hearing. A St Mungos team was camped at the door, expecting cases of magical and other strokes among the public as the proceedings went. The cameras were flashing and the magic quills were eager to record every single detail of the greatest trial in the wizarding history. Emotions ran freely and all wizards and witches capable of Legilimency worked hard to avoid eye contact with their neighbours, in order not to be overwhelmed by the depth of curiosity, expectation and fear.

The prosecution started its interrogation. A small elderly wizard by the name of Rufus McMillan, a pure-blood who looked frightened of his own shadow addressed Val first.

"Ms Pev.. Ms Black, did you cast the illegal dimension changing spell at Hogwarts?"

"I did cast a dimension shifting spell, however, whether it is illegal or not-"

"Ms Black, limit yourself to answering the question, did you or did you not cast a dimension shifting spell?" Umbridge interrupted with her evil girlish voice, laced with sweet tasting, pink-coloured venom.

"Yes, I did," said Val, aware that they were facing a tribunal where the judges would have them both burn on the stake if that had been legal to start with.

"Is it a consequence of your spell that all wizards and witches present at Hogwarts are now asleep?" Rufus McMillan continued carefully, afraid of the manner in which the younger witch answered him. There was something about her that seemed familiar, but he could not say what.

"Yes."

"Can you undo the spell?"

"No, but…"

"That is enough, thank you," the small wizard concluded bravely, looking for confirmation in Umbridge's eyes. "Honourable Members, the Accused Number One has just confessed purposefully conjuring a dangerous illegal spell that put all Hogwarts into sleep, a spell she is unwilling and unable to undo."

Val shrugged. There was one safeguard of the Peverells for all life threatening situations that Wizengamot did not know about; the rescuer of Regulus Black from the jaws of the Inferi more than 20 years ago. Val bid her time and fidgeted with her ticket out of that dreary place, a blue item hidden deep in her robes, together with the remaining scales of Nagini and some hair of Severus she carried with her ever since she met him, for good luck. _But first_ , thought Val, _we will try to tell the truth to the wizarding world. They deserve it. For better, or for worse._

The small wizard turned his attention to Snape.

"Mr Snape, have you joined the Death Eaters?"

"Yes, but…"

"Did you or did you not?"

"Yes, but…" Val gave Severus a kick and whispered through her teeth: "Just nod. This bloke has condemned us already."

"Did you kill Albus Dumbledore using an Unforgivable Killing Curse?"

"Yes."

"Do you regret it?"

"No," Snape sighed deeply after a significant pause.

"Honourable Members, we don't need more proof. The evidence of these confessions is irrefutable. The prosecution proposes a Dementor's Kiss as the only just punishment for the accused. The wizarding population will never recover from the loss we have suffered in Hogwarts, not in a hundred years," concluded the small wizard as many honourable Members of Wizengamot nodded in approval.

"Shall we vote?" Umbridge peeped discreetly. "Er… Honourable Members!" said a very insecure Sirius Black from the back row.

A Sirius Black who was Harry Potter on another day, and who could not let stupidity celebrate its triumph, after he had led and won the last wizarding battle over the great evil.

"The defence will now question the accused," stuttered the new edition of Sirius Black. "The defence and the accused have that right."

"But surely even you will see that there is no need for that! The Wizengamot has already decided to vote! We have to reach a decision in this case swiftly in order to dedicate all our time and energy to the investigation that might still help the sleepers at Hogwarts".

"Professor… er… Dolores, how do you propose to wake up Hogwarts and lift the dimension shifting spell?" said a thoroughly Polyjuiced Harry Potter.

"That is at the discretion of the Ministry and not the subject of these proceedings," replied Umbridge in a false motherly fashion.

 _Sirius said to delay,_ thought Harry, finally remembering something useful about the working of the Wizengamot, from his forceful school-time encounters with _Hogwarts, a History;_ the occasion when the Wizengamot dissolved a corrupted board of governors of the famous school for witchcraft and wizardry. "I call for an action to ask the Ministry to reveal its plans."

"I am sure you mean motion, Mr Black?" asked Mrs Brunhilda Crouch from the first row, not hiding happiness from her voice.

"Mixture. Motion, yes motion!" exclaimed Harry, wishing for Sirius to come back and help him out. He suddenly felt small and as if the dealing with Voldemort was way easier than facing the joint power of tradition and fear of anything different than the ordinary in the wizarding world.

"The Chair accepts the motion of the defence as relevant for the case. If the Ministry has no reliable plans, the only hope for the sleepers may lie in the accused. And once they have received the Dementor's kiss they will not be able to help anybody. The vote is open," said Mrs Krouch and Harry wanted to spring from joy at the first voice of reason, followed by a mute raising of many hands and some feet of those more enthusiastic to cast a vote.

"The vote is closed," thundered Mrs Krouch in contrast with her small stature. "The motion has been carried forward by a large majority. Minister Umbridge, please proceed with presenting the Ministry plans."

"The Ministry asks for a recess, in order to gather the data relevant for the presentation," stated Umbridge. She began fiddling with her fingers in a disturbed fashion.

Harry felt as if he had won another important victory.

xxxxxxxx

Sirius stood alone in the Room of Requirement, watching Ariana sleep.

He had tried every spell he knew to no avail, with the help of the invincible wand, the stick of destiny. Dark or Light spells, easy or complex, she would not wake.

He was gently combing her hair with his long fingers, while his toe nails were itching to transfigure into a dog and go for a good run in the forest. As if he could. The selfish part in him thought of Harry and his son, he had to go back and live for them, he had to be there for Val... his sister... who could be kissed by the Dementors, or hopefully not, if they were able to put up a good case to defend her.

No! He could not leave Ariana.

Sirius was never hurt by girls. Surely he met many girls in his short life as a free man, but his friends and his cause to bring down Voldemort held priority over such cheerful but mostly trivial encounters. Since he was 11, his friends replaced his family and Hogwarts replaced his home. It wasn't like that any more.

He could not leave her.

Desperate, he grasped one of her long hands remembering how tall she was, as tall as he, and Sirius was by no means a short man. He towered over Snape who was also quite tall for a slimy git.

He finally remembered Grindelwald's squashed piece of parchment, his last will and statement, directed so pretentiously to Ariana. Spreading it open over Ariana's immaculate white robes decorated with shiny green and gold half-moons, Sirius re-read the bastard's poor excuses to Ariana for what he did to her, barely able to contain his anger.

The final words danced in front of his eyes like the first time he had read them in the Headmaster's Office. " _They say that one day the Veil has to return to the place it was taken from. Then all the good deeds wrought by the angels will come true. But no one knows where that place is._ "

The words of an elaborate nonsense came into mind, pronounced at dusk in the horrible prison in the middle of the sea by a dying old man, Ariana's father, with a zeal of a true Seer: " _They say that the Veil of Death is made from the liquid thoughts of angels…_ "

When he was defending the attic in the past, waiting for Phineas Nigellus to return one last time, Sirius was able to checke that Muggles called _angels_  some beings which didn't exist. Still, those non-existing beings were believed to guard their steps from harm, and an average Muggle imagined them as having wings.

 _"Not just any angels…"_ Percival's voice thrummed in Sirius's head, unstoppable, sounding completely enchanted, _"the guardian angels who failed to protect their charges. The protectors of orphans and lost children. With their thoughts dense like frozen tears of regret as they wished and wished to have done more for those they were bound to keep safe, but who had died instead."_

Sirius started to whistle the rest of Percival's words as a merry tune, accompanying it by completely irresponsible rhythmical clicking and swishing of the unbeatable wand, as if it was a percussion instrument, and not a channel for powerful magic. _"It is said that if a soul falls in the Veil, a soul persecuted by great injustice, yet pure as when it was but a child in this world and content to endure the pain, the angels may smile again. Then their thoughts will touch and gently wrap the soul carrying it softly to the place where it belongs, where it should have been all along."_

 _"_ Hey, _angels,_ "he called out loud like a lunatic to the non-existing beings. "Is that where you took her? Where does she belong if not with me? Did you take me to her two years ago? Why?"

As usual when Sirius yearned to know something, the answer was never forthcoming. So he continued humming, for strength and inspiration, the words of the prophecy. _"They say that the angels speak to such souls. They tell them stories of courage, of love and of regret. And maybe, just maybe, if the soul listens, it might yet find happiness or at least a measure of peace. For the thoughts of angels stay with us wherever we go. It is just that we cannot see them."_

 _What if that is one and the same tale,_ Sirius thought, _Percival told me the beginning and Grindelwald may have told Ariana the end. I only have to bring the Veil home. But where is that?_

"Ariana..." he whispered pathetically, "you have become my home. I would gladly have my own soul sucked up by the Dementors if that could save you and wake up Hogwarts on a side."

Sirius Black thought for an uncharacteristically long time, unwilling to put in practice the solution he had devised when he was still in Grimmauld Place.

It was the only thing that might work.

Or kill both him and Ariana in the process.

Sirius knew only one place in the world that might have been a home to the Veil, and only one way to try and bring it there against the all-powerful protective enchantments of Hogwarts. He scribbled a short message for his friend Remus on the back of Grindelwald's parchment, instructing him to go to the Ministry with all survivors of the final battle against Voldemort and to testify in favour of Snape working for the light. Sirius begged Remust to testify as well in favour of Val Peverell, who worked with Snape to help them all, a woman none of them have known but for whom Sirius guaranteed with his own life. He vanished all content of Grindelwald's letter to Ariana except the sentence about the Veil, and he wrote in small writing the rest of the story of the Veil on top of it, as he remembered it from Percival Dumbledore.

 _There,_ he thought, _one part tells the story about the Veil, and the other tells you what to do, Remus, my dearest friend. You were the best student of us all for a reason. If I don't see you again, maybe you can work out a solution from there._

Sirius fervently hoped he was right in his assumptions about the Veil as he went to bring his motorcycle to the Room of Requirement. He had left it hidden next to the Great Lake, disillusioned as a bush of orange roses. It was embarrassing, but his magic was started to express itself in _her_ colours, orange and gold, yellow and silver. On the way back, he carefully tucked the letter he prepared for Remus in his pocket, laying a sticking charm on it so that it wouldn't get lost. He also added a finding charm, to make it the first thing Remus would have in hands if Sirius was successful in his latest endeavour.

He was confident that removing the Veil from Hogwarts entirely should end the dimension shifting spell it maintained in place and wake up all the sleepers. What would happen to Sirius and Ariana in the process was an entirely different matter, on which he chose not to dwell, lest his determination abandons him. He gave the Veil a sharp look, begging for answers, sensing it was so much more than it looked and more that the Ministry ever suspected it was.

But he could still not say what it was, or where was its home.

All he could hear was a whisper of voices, some deep and menacing, some crystal like the chant of fairies on the Christmas tree. The voices were luring him in, but the Veil was unable or unwilling to declare its own purpose clearly.

 _No time to lose anymore_ , Sirius thought as he gently pulled Ariana up on his lap with his right arm. He bent slightly over her figure to support her, careful not to pull her feet out of the Veil by force, as he secured a handlebar of the motorbike with his left arm. Both handlebars shook wildly in his insecure one-handed grip at first. Only after the longest of moments did they finally become steady. The unbeatable wand was safely stuck in the blue jeans he chose to wear with his old T-shirt, or so he hoped.

Strangely calm, he eyed the arch that had devoured him not that long ago. _This is as it should be_ , he thought. _We belong together in this time, with Harry and with our son. Please, let it be real_ , he prayed to the unknown, as he never believed in destiny of any kind. The outcome of any action was always far from certain, that much he knew.

Ariana's sleeping weight was heavy and warm on his chest. He fought not to let her slide and to maintain the position, glad that everybody was asleep, and that the Ministry was competently away, probably already well equipped with lies they would present as truths at his sister's trial.

Sirius wouldn't have been able to stand prying eyes and sly comments at yet another crazy rash deed he was about to commit. _The pride of the Blacks,_ he thought. _I am still not free of it, great-great-grandfather, but I will do my best to bury it once and for all if I am given the gift of life just one more time._

He focused as hard as he could on the images of the small home above the sea Ariana and he shared in 1925, hoping it still existed in 1998, when starting the engine. He lost consciousness well before he could see the motorcycle catching flames, passing straight through the arch which held the Veil of Death together, like a giant, living, bright orange flare, followed with raven wings made of Sirius's hair. The motorcycle back wheel flew right behind it.

The family of a newborn boy moved aside to let the burning machine soar into the dark blue sky above them. A winged being smiled from the top corner of the painting, blowing a trumpet, sounding a horn.

In the Great Hall of Hogwarts, Remus Lupin slowly opened his eyes. His head hurt tremendously, but apart from that, he felt very much alive.


	29. Falling into Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the angels return home

Vanna Prince McMillan left McMillan Manor in great haste, inventing a silly lie her house elf could tell her husband. If he bothered to ask. They shared the house and the bed in friendly terms, and that was all. Her third born child, Rufus McMillan, a 10 years old, slept like an angel in his bed, and the elf was going to take good care of him. Her grown up children did not need her any more, having left their home already years ago.

In her waking dreams that rarely betrayed her, Vanna had seen a strange whirlwind of dark blue light hanging above the small house in the middle of her own property in the Scottish moors overlooking the sea. It was the year 1904. She Apparated in front of the stone cottage which was her favourite hiding place when she wanted to think about one Phineas Nigellus Black, who would also frequently visit her over there with neither his family nor hers being the wiser for it.

When Phineas abandoned her for his travels and rich way of life (or so she believed), she married soon and out of spite. Only to have her love return, freak out and curse her. She miscarried from their falling out, and he had blamed himself for months even if he had no reason to. Vanna had been weak, didn't eat well, and the magical healer was of the opinion that she may have miscarried from purely natural causes.

She tried to talk to him about it, but Black turned proud and closed himself to her as only Blacks were able to do. He soon proposed marriage to Ursula Flint, and then had a cheek to invite Vanna and her husband to _his_ wedding.

The wedding party did not turn quite the way she expected.

Phineas and Vanna ended up consummating their own relationship on the floor in one of the too many rooms of Grimmauld Place 12 during the first part of the reception, before Black and his future wife even managed to say their marriage vows.

They shared everything ever since, except for children which they chose to have with their respective spouses. To make it easier, or so Phineas said, and she never understood his stubbornness on that point. Apart from her youngest one… Rufus… who was her little secret towards both her husband and Phineas… She still wasn't sure if she was going to tell her lover the truth in a little time she had left.

She rushed through the door of the house, but instead of her long term lover she crashed into an unconscious couple bent over a strange looking black apparatus on two wheels that she had not yet seen in existence, manifestly of Muggle origin. Decent wizarding families would _never_ use such a clumsy machine constructed of obsolete metal parts. The man and the woman were crumpled next to her favourite painting of Nativity. She received it as a wedding gift from a Muggle family she had befriended in London despite being a pure-blooded witch. They were from somewhere deep in the continent, and the wife collected paintings of babies, angels, and saints, and of more such strange things some Muggles still believed in. The figures held no meaning for Vanna as a witch, but she had to admit that every painting she had seen at her friend's was more beautiful than the other. She had an eye for those things. Her friends had told her the painting would protect her in anything she chose to do as long as it was for the good cause.

The strange young man shared an uncanny resemblance with Phineas but he was definitely not any of the living Blacks she had met before. The man's left hand was severely burned until above the elbow, but he wouldn't relinquish his mortal grip on one of the handles on the black metal abomination he was still seated on. His right arm curled protectively over the woman, beautiful like sin and strangely quiet with her feet attached to the painting at an odd angle. Vanna couldn't resist caressing them both on their faces and hair in a purely motherly fashion.

They seemed asleep, and they didn't react to her touch.

Phineas said long time ago, when they first met in the cottage, that the painting was alive, somehow, and that it could mean something. Yet it possessed no magic that any of them could understand. It was Muggle, inside and out. Yet the strangers arrived, another proof of the unexplainable. Without knowing what she was doing, she touched the frame and wished for the painting to protect those two unknown people as it had always veiled over Phineas and her. She wished with all her might for the Veil to take them home. Wherever that was. Because that was as it should have been, and a good thing to be done. It felt as if her very existence depended on the fulfilment of her wish.

The surface of the painting trembled.

The dark blue of the sky grew over its edges and slowly crept forward, like a cake rising too high in its mould during baking. Vanna believed she could hear soft music, a chant of clear voices similar to her young children singing Yule carols when decorating the tree with living fairies. With a sound of a trumpet, or a cymbal, the great blue vastness glided forward, swallowing the intruders and the device they brought with them, or which brought them to her, she could not be sure.

Vanna took a deep breath as the cottage turned back into normal, and the painting still and harmless, as if nothing has ever happened. She decided never to mention the incident to Phineas. Men were cowards and she was afraid that the fearsome _pater familias_ of the Black family (who would nevertheless lay at her feet as a loyal dog in the long winter evenings) would never see her again in that place, had he known for sure that his suspicions were true and that the painting was not innocuous after all.

And her lover had to see her as often as possible now because they didn't have much time.

Vanna was dying.

She had perhaps another year of her life in front of her. Happy for no reason that the intruders were gone and feeling as if a higher force had helped her direct them, she decided that the time now was as good as any. The next time she would see Phineas she was going to Obliviate him on all of their relationship. Then she could die in peace and Phineas might be able to find a measure of happiness with his family for the rest of his immeasurably long and lonely life, even if Blacks did tend to live somewhat shorter than most wizards.

Vanna never got the opportunity to break Phineas's heart as she intended. When she stepped out of the house, and wanted to Disapparate, a very young blond haired wizard with an arrogant smirk stood on her path and Obliviated her memory of all times she had ever come to the cottage. He used a special dark spell of his own concoction that triggered the same effect in any other person who was coming to meet her there.

Unknowingly, Gellert Grindelwald deleted the love story of Phineas Nigellus Black and Vanna Prince McMillan from the face of the earth.

Content about his achievement, Grindelwald hurried forward and entered the cottage.

An old blind wizard, who didn't have much time left either, descended from the real, not painted sky, flying a dangerous looking machine Vanna must have seen once, but she didn't know where any more. Such was the strength of the dark spell cast on her. She did, however, recognise the man, and her eyes filled with salty water when she saw that his sharp brown eyes could not see her any longer. Clear blue eyes. Dead eyes.

"Phineas," she said through her tears and took his wrinkled face in her hands, "what did they do to you? I haven't seen you in years…"

"It matters not, Vanna," he said with tremendous warmth in his living voice, filling her soul like a lost treasure. "I remember now! Our time together as it was. We have been together, Vanna, for years. I wish I could give the memory back to you, before you go."

"I don't need you to do that, Phineas," she said in a serious voice. "If you say so, I believe you."

"Always so credulous," he said tenderly, caressing her cheek.

"Always so full of doubt," she responded in kind and pulled his arms around her. "Tell me one thing," she whispered, "did we have good times?"

"The best of times," he told her, and her tears dissolved in laughter clearer than a sunny day.

"Go," she told him when she had her fill of being in his arms. "I am sure that you are also in a hurry. As always."

"Always, Vanna," he said, returning to the two-wheeled vehicle.

"Always," she repeated, meaning nothing, and yet meaning everything.

She found that she could only stare at the sky, watching Phineas Nigellus disappear among the stars, burning bright as one of them.

In less than two months Vanna Prince McMillan died from a rare magical disease, and a broken-hearted younger version of Phineas Nigellus, who didn't yet discover the truth about his life, quit his position as a Headmaster of Hogwarts. He never understood how unrequited love could make him, a Black, to do such a move. _It was never about love,_ he told himself, _it is just that I hate teaching._

xxxxxxx

Gellert Grindelwald never wasted time looking at the stars or observing people he didn't need for something. If he did, his own life may have been a different one.

He left the woman he cursed only because she happened to cross his path without looking back, and avidly approached the Muggle painting of a birth of a child. _So this must be the Veil of Death_ , he thought, _hidden in this sweet insignificant image._

He had studied all available sources about the Veils of Death with the same devotion that he applied to the study of the Deathly Hallows. Using a special Tracing Charm, he pinpointed the magical disturbances that could show a presence of a Veil of Death across the entire European continent, and after a few years of hard labour he had finally found one on the British Isles. Gellert spent the next two months in the small stone house above the sea, barely eating or sleeping. He was sure that the Veil would serve him and reveal the mysteries of controlling Death to him, the greatest dark wizard of all times.

But the faces of a man, a woman and a child smiled to him together with the winged beings depicted above, motionless and eternal, unchanging. Sometimes at night the children voices would whisper to his ears that he had been wrong, wrong about everything, wrong about the Veil, but he would not pay them any attention, pig-headed as he was and immersed in his own labour.

After her death, Vanna's cottage was bought by Percival Dumbledore, the greatest expert in magical objects and wizarding and Muggle beliefs of that age, who wanted a safe place far away from his family home in Godric's Hollow to store the useless and some potentially dangerous items he had accumulated over time. Percival came to the possession of the cottage in a company of his oldest son Albus who was a young lad at the time, a bright blue-eyed, red-haired child eager to know the world.

In the cottage they found an unconscious blond-haired young man, older than Albus, sprawled in front of an idyllic painting of a birth of a baby under the dark night sky. Percival smiled knowingly at the object but Albus touched the youth curiously with his wand until he sat up, awake and puzzled. Grindelwald felt great magical power emanating from both father and son and immediately forgot about the Veil, convinced that the destiny set on his path another means to gain eternal life and limitless power.

"This painting, where does it come from?" asked Percival.

"It is mine", Grindelwald lied, "but I will gladly give it to you as I have no use for it. I was renting this cottage but I was about to leave anyway if you bought this property."

"That is very generous, son. How can we repay you?"

"How about dinner?" Grindelwald smiled at Albus who looked shyly to the ground.

"Why not? My wife would be pleased to see a new face and leave our smallest child, a girl, to the house elves for a few hours."

And that was how Grindelwald became invited to the Dumbledore family house in Godric's Hollow. Albus and Gellert sat together in the grass next to a river, very late that night, after the family meal. The red-haired boy gazed dreamily at the starry sky above as Gellert described in a passionate voice the meaning of Deathly Hallows and shared with Albus his annotated copy of the Tales of Beatle the Bard.

Grindelwald didn't think about the Veil of Death anymore until the end of his life drew near. Still, for sentimental reasons he could not explain, or maybe it was the will of the Veil itself, he tore a piece of the parchment attached to the back side of the painting. It looked like a dedication of a silly wedding gift to the stupid witch he cursed and who had no idea what she had in her possession. The part he took spoke about the need for the Veil to find its home. Gellert was using it to mark the place where he stopped reading in his books, from the day he found the Veil until his death in Nurmengard prison many years later, at the hands of the Lord Voldemort.

Old Percival remained awake as well. He had felt the dread stemming from the young, innocent looking blond wizard and he hoped that Albus would have wisdom enough to see through his passionate words.

It was in that night that Percival had Seen the foreboding of doom for his family.

Wishing to forget about his vision, as if oblivion was going to make it any less true, he turned to reading a torn parchment he had inherited with the painting, the latest edition to his already large collection of useless magical and Muggle artefacts he kept. Against all odds he believed they had potential to become something else, in another time, in another universe. Percival was a man of strong beliefs, strong but not firm, fluid as the time itself.

" _They say that the Veil is made from liquid thoughts of angels,"_ Percival read, and wondered at the beauty of the words. _May the angels watch over us all,_ he thought, as he burned the parchment and conveyed the strange words to his memory forever, as yet another vision of things to come.

xxxxxxxxx

Sirius Black woke up with a thundering headache.

He gulped for air as a man drowning who had just been pulled out of deep black water. Or a dark blue abyss. It depended on the perspective. His mouth was full of hair and seconds later there was a warm feeling on his lips.

He was being kissed senseless by the brightest blue eyes in the world bearing sharply into his pale, haunted ones. Ariana pulled Sirius up on his knees and hugged him fiercely, pushing her long hands under his T-shirt, while he laughed as a dog barking at the moon, or a man finally gone over the edge of his own sanity for good.

They were in the small house above the sea where they had met, with the painting of Nativity innocently attached to the back wall. Sirius noticed that the arch was now the integral part of the buttresses built in the wall, something he had never seen before.

The painting soon disappeared from his conscious mind, or maybe it was his conscious mind that disappeared because Ariana was with him. They found they had to repeat willingly the encounter that had spontaneously happened between them, many months, or many years ago, again, depending on the perspective.

She was out of her robes, and he followed suit, not in a hurry to end it.

"Are you real?" she asked.

"Does it matter? " he asked her back, lazily exploring a contour of her leg with one of his fingers.

She leaned into him with her entire body length and shivered in anticipation when his arms closed around her.

"I'm not afraid any more," she said.

"What if I am?" he asked. "Afraid that it is not real?"

"Does it matter?" she replied with his words and searched for him in a way that left no room for misinterpretation of her wishes.

"Good Merlin," he said, before all coherent thought fluttered, spread its wings wide, and took flight.

"Show me," she whispered, "show me how this is supposed to be. Don't make me wait. I've waited for so long... I want this, dream or not. I don't care."

She slithered on her discarded robes and lay on her back, her long hair half covering her like a silky curtain. Sirius crawled forward. Blood was in his brains and he nearly came undone when he finally did to Ariana what an honourable pure blood never should have done to please a woman. She became so very soft after it; as if there was not a single bone left in her body. Yet before he knew it, he was being pulled up to her, almost against his will. Her legs ended up on his shoulders and he closed his eyes. It was all he could do not to scream. He sank into her, biting one of her long legs as he did it, conquered and weak, forgotten forever. And when his body finally betrayed him, he uttered a long wail of satisfaction, of a man long lost coming home.

The sound of the trumpets came out of nowhere when they were trying to get themselves together, and pick up the pieces of normality none of them was very much used to in their lives.

"What now? Are we... imprisoned again?" she asked, but it was not Sirius that answered.

"Go now! The time is nigh!" the children-like voices chanted in simultaneous crystal disarray and harmony, and for the first time Sirius and Ariana were able to understand the words they were saying. "We are home."

In a surge of dark blue, three wands appeared laying neatly in front of the painting as a gift the painting made to them; the one that Sirius got from Harry, his own, and an unknown pliable one, probably made of birch as one of the components.

Ariana took the birch wand. Noticing Sirius's puzzled look, she clarified. "I can Apparate both of us back to Hogwarts now if you wish. I can also do wandless, but this might be safer."

"Wait," Sirius said and handed the Elder Wand back to the Veil, struck by a sudden idea that the wand which belonged to Grindelwald and Voldemort should better get lost from the face of the world. And the Veil seemed like an excellent place for safe-keeping of dangerous things. "It might be better if you take this one back. It doesn't really belong to anyone."

A new surge of the dark blue substance the painted sky had been made off sailed slowly towards Sirius and wrapped a tiny part of itself around the wand given by Death, taking it into its custody, covering it slowly, until the stick of destiny was no longer visible.

The substance seemed alive and it proceeded with extreme caution not to touch Sirius in any way.

"A gift for a gift!" the clear voices sung. And suddenly, a thread of dark blue liquid, similar to the substance that the Veil was made of, shone on each of the two wands they had left, a magic of the Veil, a magic as they have never seen before. The blue shimmered, and gleamed, and hid itself inside the wands.

"The time is nigh," the voices sung again.

"Can I invite you for a ride?" said Sirius, offering his hand to Ariana, and throwing her his most casual look, as if nothing unusual had ever happened to them, or between them.

"Gladly," said Ariana. "Bella told me you used to fly a bike."

"BELLA? What does she have to do with anything?"

"Have you seen Alphard?" Ariana asked with small reticence.

Sirius grinned stupidly in confirmation: "Is he really-?"

"-Our son? Of course he is," Ariana dissipated any doubts he could have had on the subject and launched a verbal attack of her own. "And just so that you know, Bella helped deliver our child. Kept us both alive with her sad stories when I was in labour. She babysat him at times with your dead mother and Kreacher, so that I could correspond with the Order about the defences of Hogwarts. If she is still alive, I want her to be his godmother."

Sirius nodded mutely, at the complete loss for words.

He felt encircled around his waist from the back and propelled to his own bike's seat, parked neatly inside the house, as if the unknown blue forces had done them that favour as well.

Sirius remembered feeling his skin burning when he rode through the Veil, still in the Room of Requirement. He looked at his arms, but the burns were gone. _A miracle,_ he thought, amazed for a second, and than he did what he was best at.

Sirius stopped thinking.

"I believe there's another place we should go to before going to Hogwarts. It's only a hunch, but my hunches seem to have a way of working lately, for a change," he said and started the engine.

"Hold on," he said peacefully to his love, filled with yearning to see where they were and what they could still achieve together. "There are some special features. And whatever you do, remember to keep your hands away from the handlebars!"

xxxxxxx

"Mr Peverell!" Charlie exhaled, pushing the door of the closed pub wide open. Bellatrix was safely in his arms but he would not be able to hold her for long. Betty went behind the house to hide as she was used to and soon she resembled a particularly blue patch of the sky that only revealed having sharp glittering scales from the closest proximity.

Charlie nearly turned back in his steps when a ghost answered his call, gliding to the pub through one of the walls, followed by an aristocratic looking too thin lady, singing a lullaby to a sleeping baby she was holding in a carrier magically made of her hair.

"Mr Peverell..." he said with fear.

"Don't worry, son, it's me. I'm so glad to see you!" the cheerful voice was the one Charlie knew and he also had to admit that the chubby side of Ignotus Peverell did not diminish with him being a ghost. "Tell me, have you talked to someone looking a bit like me but who... er... in absence of better words... did not exist? I mean, I don't actually exist, but I do exist in a way as a ghost, but those others looking like me, they..."

"I saw a man in pink shorts," Charlie blurted, "he was not real. He wanted to steal your dragon and if I let him, he said he would cure her."

Charlie pointed with his head to the immobile witch in his arms.

"Why didn't you believe him?" Ignotus asked.

"I almost did. Until he became violent about wanting some Crystal Sphere from the Ministry..."

"Crystal Sphere?" the ghost and his lady guest said, the lady turning her attention to the burden in Charlie's arms while he got redder than his hair.

"Bella, my niece, look at you!" she said coldly. "And here I thought you were about to regain some reason."

"What did she do to herself?" the serious lady asked Charlie, eyeing him from tip to toe, making him more afraid than he had ever been of his fierce mother.

"Er... she called back to her body the Cruciatus curses she used on the Longbottoms... they seem to be fine but her... well..."

"She lives!" Ignotus exclaimed touching the eyebrows of the unconscious witch. "That is definitely something!"

"How Slytherin, Bella," commented the lady witch, giving Charlie another appreciative look which soon started burning with hatred. "And what did you do to her?"

"I.. er..." Charlie was dead afraid.

"Wally, he's a good boy," Ignotus interfered, "don't ask him difficult questions. It's not a small thing to escape Cadmus's and Antioch's influence and recognise their deceit. Even I find it hard at times."

"Iggy," the lady he called Wally replied, "it's the Sphere then. The fourth gift of Death. We didn't find it in the Manor when we had our fun because the Ministry has it."

"It was fun, wasn't it?" Iggy looked at Wally as if she was the centre of his existence, and Charlie decided to risk giving an equally pungent look to Bellatrix. After all, it was not as if she could see it and hold him liable later on.

"I haven't had such fun since we played together," Wally looked at Ignotus Peverell as if a chubby ghost was the most handsome Quidditch player in existence, and Charlie wished like crazy that Bellatrix would wake up and look at him like that, exactly like that, with... love... Or with any living expression, even with a Killing Curse ready on her lips.

"Bella," he surprised himself by weeping like a child when he dared to call her by her short name for the first time in his life, much shorter than his. "Wake up, please. I didn't mean any of it. Well, I meant what I did, but not what I said. Please."

"Son, hum," said Ignotus carefully. "Maybe the two of you could join us. We should pay a visit to the Ministry and see about that Crystal Sphere my brother wanted. Was it Cadmus or Antioch?"

Charlie had to think.

"Antioch, I reckon," he finally chose an answer. "He also threatened to curse me properly once he would regain his toy."

"Poor Antioch," Ignotus sighed, "it is very unlikely that he will get back his heart's desire."

"Come, blood traitor," the lady said as if it was a normal form of address and not a rude offence. "You are still a wizard, aren't you. Levitate Bella, she won't mind in her condition."

"It's not that far away," Charlie said and protectively wrapped the pale unconscious witch in his arms, decided to ignore his own discomfort and pain.

When they arrived in front of the Wizengamot chambers, a wizarding couple and a lone wizard stood at the entrance. The heavy door was closed and no magic could be used to open it.

"We've been at it for an hour now," the witch said to her partner. "It's unfair, we were not even ten minutes late and they close us out. How is that for the new openness of the Ministry to the public?"

"I have an audience with the Queen this afternoon," the lone wizard complained. "Can't the two of you do something about this with your… er… wands?"

"Shut up," the other wizard told him, nervously, miserably failing at another variety of the simple Alohomora spell.

Charlie noticed that the wizard ranting wore a set of bright red dress robes upside down, and a fluffy yellow hat half perched on his bald head. Under the robes Charlie could glimpse a Muggle formal suit his father would sometimes wear to impress mother. The wizard's attire gave an unmistakable impression that he was wearing robes for the very first time in his life. He looked more eccentric than the old Xenophilius Lovegood and that was something to say.

Ignotus Peverell tried to pass through the door as a ghost but to no avail.

"Iggy," Wally said with trepidation, caressing the baby among her tresses, "can't you feel it?"

Charlie sank down next to the wall with Bella's body, succumbing to despair. _She will die, and I will follow her soon,_ he thought, losing all hope.

"The Dementors," said Iggy. "But not only," said Wally.

"No," Ignotus Peverell agreed. "The Death is here. We have to find another way in. Before everyone that is inside dies because of my insubordination."

"It's not your fault, Iggy," said Wally, and Charlie thought he felt Bella dying in his arms. "Stop it. They picked up the Sphere themselves. They should have known better."

"But I may be the reason the Death gave it to poor old stupid Abraxas-" "Don't you pity him!" Walburga screamed. "He ruined us and he made his choices in life! Like we all did."

"Like we're doing now," the ghost said and grasped the lady's arms.

"But not before we wake up Bella's new _friend,_ " Wally said with poison in her voice. "Come, blood-traitor," she kicked hard him in his knee. "Get your wand and protect these poor people here from what is on the inside! Iggy and me are a bit limited in spells we can perform."

Charlie could barely see, as through a thick winter fog in London, how the two wizards and a witch who couldn't get into the Wizengamot chambers lay on the floor, suffering spasms and crying, each wrapped around his body in a fetal position.

Charlie took his wand and aimed at the door of the Wizengamot chambers thinking of Bella, alive, dancing, twirling in black silk.

" _Expecto Patronum,"_ he said in wonder.

A large silvery dragon immediately blossomed from his wand, flying protectively between the closed door and the two wizards and a witch in distress.

Bella was still in his arms and she felt _warmer?_ Charlie could not tell.

"Come, son," a ghost nudged him to follow him. "That will do. We have to go now. The time is nigh."

Charlie obeyed, and he felt better with every single step they made.


	30. In the Face of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where death is not the end

Harry felt relieved because he managed to stalk the trial as Sirius had asked him to do.

He pondered on the questions he could pose to the accused as their defence counsel during the recess of the Court, among chaotic whispers, cries and the overwhelming smell of the Wizengamot. Some pure-blooded wizards living in the countryside did not hold any notions of hygiene in great esteem. Quite a few among them left their Hippogriffs and other magical steeds in the Ministry yard, colouring the odour from the outside world which found its way to the windowless room of the Wizengamot through the wall crevices with a distinct animal flavour.

After the break, Rufus McMillan presented a complicated Arithmancy equation that should point out the way to remove the dimension spell from Hogwarts in the future. Mrs Crouch asked, not seeming convinced in the least: "Are you sure that this will work?"

All present Ministry officials started nodding and giving assurances to different Members of the Wizengamot when the hoarse voice of prisoner Snape joined the choruses: "Black, remember the promises, the vo…" A Silencing Charm from Fudge's wand immediately stopped him from talking. Harry would never imagine that the former Minister of Magic and a rather sloppy wizard in his opinion could draw a wand that fast, much less cast a spell.

Harry thought feverishly on his next move before questioning the accused, focused on his task of gaining time. By now he knew Snape good enough to conclude that he would not waste his voice if the interruption was not worthy of his time. The Blacks, the promises, the v…? Snape gave a promise? To the Blacks? The Black family tapestry came into mind, all those lives, evil and heroic, wasted or not, inseparably woven together for all times…

All of a sudden Harry thought he knew, and then he improvised on the part he only guessed: "I call upon the Minister to lay down an Unbreakable Vow in front of the Wizengamot that the formula a member of her staff presented will wake up Hogwarts."

"Hem, hem," said Umbridge as the room turned into silence and Snape gave Harry the smallest nod of approval. "Surely there is no need…"

Harry felt accomplished, washed in certainty that Hermione would be proud of his newly discovered eloquence in learned language of the wizarding world. If only she were awake.

"But there is, Dolores," said Griselda Marchbanks standing up in one of the front rows. Harry could kiss the old witch who was already his saviour at the Owls exams when Umbridge was still a teacher, a High Inquisitor and a self-proclaimed Headmaster of Hogwarts, short-lived, and undeserving of the portrait in the Headmaster's office.

"We have to know for sure before we condemn to worse than death the casters of the original spell. In the worst case scenario the caster should be able to call a spell back upon her at the cost of her own life. And Mr Snape must have been her accomplice. They seem inseparable," Marchbanks concluded.

The two prisoners indeed sat more intertwined than before, defying the wizarding notions of propriety. Still, with both being of age, no one could object to their questionable behaviour on grounds of any rules in force.

"All right, Griselda, I agree to test the equation before executing the sentence. Can we now vote on the sentence?" Umbridge said impatiently.

"The defence calls upon the Wizengamot to note the fact that Minister Umbridge is reluctant to make an Unbreakable Vow. She isn't sure that her method will work!" yelled Harry Potter after carefully sipping another tiny portion of Polyjuice Potion tasting like dog piss to look like Sirius Black. "She doesn't know! She doesn't have a clue!"

"Mr Black, Minister. Let's respect the order of the proceedings," said Mrs Krouch calmly as Umbridge and Harry cried together in one cacophonic voice. "What?"

"Merlin…" cursed Mrs Krouch under the voice, "it is not astonishing that Mr Black is not aware of procedural rules as he never had a trial himself when my late brother shipped him to Azkaban, but frankly, Dolores, you surely do know that the defence is entitled to question the prisoners before any sentence can be passed."

Harry cursed his ignorance and blessed Mrs Krouch for her intervention as he went down the steps in a slow motion and removed the small prosecution wizard from the interrogation tribune. A stark white magical light from the ceiling hit Harry square in the face, making him feel extremely vulnerable and small. He looked at his body and remembered that visually he possessed the imposing height of his godfather. To contrary his inner turmoil and insecurity, he straightened his shoulders and gave an arrogant look to the audience, not sparing a single glance for Umbridge.

It was empowering to see them all clearly without wearing glasses.

From the corner of his eyes, he noticed a very embarrassed expression on the Interim Minister face as more and more honourable Members of the Wizengamot started pointing fingers at her, chuckling from laughing. Harry immediately felt much better. Ready as he could ever be to launch an attack against platitude and falsity.

"Ms Black, what is the purpose of the dimension shifting spell?" he started.

"It creates two or more realities existing in parallel in the same space and time."

"Why did you cast it at Hogwarts?"

"Severus told me Voldemort was going to attack Hogwarts. I brought all living souls in Hogwarts into another dimension where they would be safe from it. In short, it means they would remain living even if the Killing Curse was used on them in the dimension where they fought the Death Eaters."

"And why can't you lift the spell now that the attack is over if your intentions were so noble?" interrupted Umbridge murderously.

Val blushed and spoke gazing at Severus all the time, as if to gain courage to lay her heart plain in the eyes of others. "You would not have to ask this if you knew anything about the gift of a true Dimension Shifter. Just like the true Seers, we don't acquire it, we are born with it. We learn how to use it, usually from our parents, who had it before we did. The gift is transmitted from a parent to a child. But our parents can teach us only indirectly. Because when a Dimension Shifter falls in love and the love is returned, we lose our power. Our gift can be used to create lies and illusion where true love will suffer no deception. So we lose the capacity to hide us, or others, in parallel niches of time. And we gain the ultimate truth. Love is stronger than anything."

Umbridge continued being stubborn as could be expected, and Harry had a hunch he should let her go on and bare her own motives to everyone present.

"You filth!" Interim Minister howled at Val with indignation as if she was punishing disobedient students in Hogwarts, making them write lines in their own blood. "You expect us to believe that right after casting your horrible spell you met your one true love in the middle of the battle and lost your magic? Ridiculous!"

"Is it?" said Val turning her tied hands towards Severus. "Behold the rite of old!"

Between oohs! and uuhs! Val gently touched Severus's eyelids with her hands, ignoring the bruising and the slight bleeding of her wrists when she forced herself to reach far enough through the magic bonds. Severus leaned into them gently, chastely touching her injured joints with his lips. Golden lines encircled their faces confirming the oldest bonding ritual of the wizarding world, fallen in disuse by centuries of more traditional bonding of the hands.

Forbidden cameras clicked and clacked, and at least several self-writing Quills flew nervously over parchments, papers, and robes in some cases, recording the moment.

"Fascinating" whispered Mrs Marchbanks, "we should include Dimension Shifting in the syllabus for Charms in Hogwarts, or maybe as a side discipline to Divination…"

Years later, Harry would remember the moment when so many things went wrong at the same time.

Rufus McMillan, forgotten in the row of grey looking Ministry officials, started growing in size until he was almost at a height with Harry, or rather, Sirius Black. His grey hair darkened, his eyes became sharp and dark brown in colour.

"What?" Rufus said, looking at his short fingers growing and gaining in elegance.

A horde of Dementors which was peacefully adoring the Crystal Sphere which kep turning in the empty middle of the room, between the prisoners and the Minister seat, suddenly backed from it in all directions, slowly occupying the space around it as Death Eaters would around Voldemort. The Sphere increased its speed, until it was spinning faster than the wheels of a Muggle plane taking off, Harry thought.

Snape gave the odd glass ball a shrewd look, and than he turned his black eyes to Val who was for her part staring mutely at the change in the Sphere. Harry recognised what was in Snape's eyes. They were dead again. As in his most intimate memories Harry had unwillingly witnessed when the teacher he hated with all his might mourned the death of Harry's mother.

Snape was saying farewell to Val, and she didn't even notice.

Harry nervously groped his robes in search of a wand, only to realize he didn't have one. With expectation, he returned his attention to Snape, who had Harry's wand, but the wizard was more impassive than ever.

The Sphere stopped, and a black hooded figure stepped forward, speaking in a horrid voice, ancient and hollow.

"My dear witches and wizards, you have let me into your world of your own free will by mindlessly allowing my gift to turn freely in the presence of so many of you," the figure said, "it is my right now to take all your souls with me to my domain before your appointed time."

"What is your domain?" said Rufus McMillan in a changed voice Harry was used to hear from the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black.

"Your _real_ father already belongs to it, young Rufus," the figure said and made a broad gesture of a cloaked arm encompassing the chamber, "and so will all of you, before long. Unless you can soften my ire by returning to me all the gifts I bestowed on wizards until this very moment, the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak. Or in the absence of this, if you return to me the Veil of Death, for it is mine by right, although I was not its creator."

"You… you… you…" peeped Minister Umbridge and Harry was amazed that she didn't entirely lack courage in the new situation where many among the present simply cowered in fear, pretending they were not there. "You don't exist!"

"On the contrary," the figure said, "I will take you first, Dolores, as a proof of my very tangible reality. Unless someone volunteers to die before the others. These are my turns. Don't tell that Death was not generous in his demands."

Harry searched under his robes, but it seemed that for the first time in years he was so stressed when he went to the Wizengamot that he forgot his Dad's Invisibility Cloak in the Grimmauld Place 12. He would not be able to return it even if he wished to do so.

"My acolytes!" the Death called, "come out now!"

An old man in pink shorts followed by a dog, and another one in ruffled brown robes with only three hairs on his shiny bald head stepped gingerly out of the Sphere.

"Meet the Peverell brothers, Antioch and Cadmus," Death said, "my slaves for centuries since they succumbed to the allure of the gifts I gave them…"

Antioch's dog approached Val and barked at her eagerly.

"It looks like little Cerberus has chosen," Cadmus commented merrily. "She's a fine specimen, our brother's only child in his fourteen miserable lives. The grief of her passing should finally ensure that in his fourteenth and final last hour he accepts the dominion of Death over all life."

"As we did," added Antioch.

"A wise choice indeed," Death said. "I am pleased."

Val raised her head and showed no desire to move when several Dementors approached her. Harry decided to raise his arm and volunteer to die in her place. Somehow he believed Val was one of the few persons who actually stood a chance to resolve the entire mess and wake up all his friends in Hogwarts. It would be worth it.

An incredibly strong wordless Legilimency spell hit Harry's mind before his hand could fly up, and his mental defences, always poor, crushed down, bringing foremost in his mind the image of dead professor Snape after Nagini's bite, and then the lime coloured hat of former Minister Fudge.

Harry waited, unsure what the vision meant, and the Dementors glided forward.

The tattered dress of one of the Dementors nearly touched Val's face, assuming a comfortable position to yank her forward for a kiss.

"Hey, Death," Harry said to interrupt, ignoring little Cerberus barking curiously in his general direction, "won't you do it yourself?"

"Why now, if I have so many servants to do my bidding…"

But Harry was used to Voldemort's lies and he didn't believe Death. If he didn't do his dirty work himself, it could be that he was not so omnipotent or present in their world as he would wish them to believe.

"Cast Patronuses," Harry screamed with Sirius's voice. "Help her!"

A great number of witches and wizards who still kept their wits about them obeyed him, and Harry was proud of them. A flock of silvery animals of all kinds and sizes attacked the Dementors.

Death laughed heartily, and the beautiful Crystal Sphere, an object of grace and harmony, in appearance, at least, spun madly, sucking the Patronuses in its transparent benign depths, until there was not a single one left.

"My friends and victims," Death said as a benevolent teacher, "this Sphere is made of your hopes and your fears, of the eternal hope of your fathers before you that they would not have to die, and of their all consuming fear when they finally faced me. The hopes and the fears are so powerful that a thousand Dementors could feast on them… No spell of yours can match its strength…"

Harry's head and heart started pounding, and an image of Fudge's awful hat intensified in his mind, threatening to overcome his consciousness and make him faint. _Snape wants to talk,_ he realized. _And Fudge cursed him. I have to do something about it._

The false Sirius Black descended the tribune merrily in a pace of a running boy.

"Excuse me, please," Harry said to newly handsome Rufus McMillan, one of the Patronus casters from before, brushed past him, and punched Cornelius Fudge in his face. Fudge had been crouching in the last row of Ministry officials in fear, and Harry enjoyed the simple action profoundly, as he rarely savoured anything in his short life.

Fudge's nose stood at an odd angle, and Harry smiled, waiting.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I will be the first one to die," Severus Snape said clearly and all the eyes were upon him.

"Really? How selfless! Aren't you a little Slytherin who only believes in self-preservation?" Death said, vaguely amused.

Snape did not answer.

"Master," Cadmus said, solicitous to please, "why not take the Minister first, and then Ignotus's daughter. Dolores Umbridge's satisfaction about her own filthy plans aiming at letting everyone at Hogwarts die would be a most delicious food for our Dementor friends. They will be full of happy thoughts and most capable of continuing their hard work. Since they will have to kiss and let die so many people after her…"

"Hey, Cadmus," Harry still wondered. "Why is it that you and your brother don't do the Death's dirty work?"

"It is not fitting," Antioch stuttered, "Death in his greatness will choose the best way."

Fortifying Harry's conviction that none of the three apparitions was real, and that only the Dementors were the danger in the real world. And the bloody Sphere the Death has somehow smuggled among the living, using the greed and the ambition of wizards.

Legilimency was even less of Harry's forte than Occlumency but he still directed his mind to Snape, wishing to force his former teacher to view his own suffering when the others thought he was Dumbledore's killer and a slimey Death Eater, when none of it is real. Harry kept his living gaze of pale blue eyes on Death and his acolytes, hoping beyond hope that Snape would get his clumsy message as to what was not real before them.

He could not be certain, but he believed that Snape stretched his thin lips into a very meager smile.

Harry said silently a Muggle prayer learned during his childhood with the Dursleys. It seemed logical to do it: wizards have called Death into the world, but he could also harm the Muggles. He waited for everyone, in the end. And praying seemed to be the way some Muggles dealt with their own fear of death.

Harry had done what he could, short of volunteering to die.

There was nothing to do but wait.

The Dementors turned their undivided direction to Umbridge who first yelled, than screamed, and finally wept like a child, losing all likelihood of humanity and composure. "Please," she begged, "take the Death Eater, he said he would die, he said, I didn't do anything, not like that, there should be justice in death, there should be, he should die, he should die, or the witch, Black's sister, she is foul, take them both, please…"

Death laughed: "Do you deny that you would have preferred that every single one of your kind asleep in Hogwarts remains sleeping and dies in the end?"

"I wouldn't have preferred anything," sobbed Umbridge. "I admit that we have no equation to wake them up, not the one that would work anyway, but I swear that, if you spare me, I will sincerely work on finding one, I swear!"

"It's a bit late for that," Death said and snapped his fingers.

"Can I serve you as an acolyte?" Umbridge tried some more. "They seem alive enough…"

"Are we?" Antioch asked Cadmus who changed shape from a friendly old man into a shapeless black entity, an ominous dark blue cloud floating above the ground. Antioch mirrored his brother's action and soon did the same. It looked as if it was going to rain in Wizengamot, and Harry supressed the crazy desire to laugh.

Because the situation was not funny at all.

Dolores Jane Umbridge had nothing more to say, and she only cried in silence.

Someone in the back row of the chamber tried to open the door and run away. More wizards rushed for the exit, casting all spells and charms of opening they knew.

Death laughed some more, exhilarated, finding perverse pleasure in clarifying the details of their situation to his future victims: "Oh, I assure you, to open it, it's quite impossible. Not even a fire of a living dragon will burn through that door or the walls of this chamber. Perhaps a dark mind mush spell of one of your greatest peers, Gellert Grindewald, would be able to do the trick and make the door falter. But not even dear Gellert had enough raw magical power to cast it at the necessary level…"

The Death's words seemed to be everything Snape needed to repeat his plea in a boringly normal voice.

"I will die first. I have volunteered."

Harry shivered at the frost hidden in his few chosen words.

"Well," Death said, "I have changed my mind. I think Dolores here will be the first."

"Please, no…" Umbridge kept repeating in the back ground.

"I will be the first one to die. You set the rules of the game, and you cannot change them now," Snape said and Death did not immediately answer.

"No!" it was Val's turn to scream. "You cannot do it, you can't! Not now!"

"I can and I most certainly will," Snape said looking into her eyes.

"Are you sure?" Death tried to dissuade the Potions Master, pointing at Umbridge, an ugly pitiful pink mass of fluffy textile and wrinkled human parts in her seat of honour. "You would die for her? For this unworthy witch? You, one of the most intelligent and capable wizards of your generation. Destined to do great deeds…"

Harry noted with amusement how Death turned to flattering when things didn't go his way, and was not surprised in the least by a categorical answer of his former teacher.

"I will die," Snape snapped.

The collective heart of the Wizengamot came at a halt.

 _If I survive this, and if I have a son,_ Harry thought, hoping his father and Sirius would forgive him the choice, _I will call him Albus Severus._ Deep in his heart, Harry was convinced that he wouldn't need to ask his mother for forgiveness concerning that same thing.

"Severus, please, think of me, think of us, not everything is lost, see…" Val begged. She tried to show him a blue _scale,_ Harry thought, she had it in her robes, but the black haired wizard leaned into her, until their robes and tied limbs mingled even more together than was magically possible.

He shut her up with a soft kiss, and then he ruffled her colourful hair with his sallow cheek and backed off, as far as the prisoners' seat allowed.

"Death is not the end," Severus Snape said.

Death produced a stick and broke it over his knee in two parts, in sign of his final verdict. Val tried to break free from her bonds, but no matter how much she struggled, she could not. They were too tight.

The Dementors circled the Headmaster of Hogwarts. His ties broke loose on their command, and he was dragged away from the seat of the accused, away from Val and in front of the Crystal Sphere like helpless human offering to its trans-lucid mystery. At least ten of former Azkaban guards were swirling around him, until his body flew upward on the wings of their black robes, in rare and frightening dance of the Death. Only one Dementor rose up high with him, almost to the extremely high ceiling of the chamber, many feet above Harry, and still some distance from the last row of seats.

Gently touching his chin, the rattling creature pulled Snape's face up almost tenderly. Hooded face moved forward, its sucking mouth waiting under the cowl.

Snape's dead eyes did not waver when the Dementor pulled closer, a little at the time, closing the distance in deliberately slow motion, and passionately kissed him.

The silence in the chamber was so thick that it could be cut to regular slices with a blunt knife.

The body of the Potions Master dropped to the ground like a broken shell. Although the Dementor's Kiss did not kill, no one could survive the free fall from that height without magical help, and Snape had got none.

Harry felt a knot forming in his throat, and a desire to cry at his own miserable failure to prevent evil from happening.

Dolores Umbridge laughed like a little girl, relieved.

 _Not a good reaction, Dolores,_ Harry thought. _Not at all._

Val stood up from the prisoner seat, mute and terrible to behold.

For the first time since Harry had met her, she was a living image of her mother, and the crazy hint in her blue eyes inspired more fear in the Boy Who Lived than Bellatrix Lestrange ever did.

Her bonds were broken, her wrists bloody to the elbows. She approached Dolores Umbridge, ignoring Death and the blue and black cohorts of his helpers, and spat in her eyes.

"Scandal," Umbridge had the audacity to peep. "Take her next! She had a hospital for Death Eaters, she had! That is also a crime, don't you know? Her lover already got what he deserved!"

Val didn't spare her another look. "Brunhilda," she addressed Mrs Crouch matter-of-factly, "make sure that this is added to the list of my offences if and when my trial continues. I will gladly admit to committing it."

Harry had to admire Mrs Crouch's perseverance in obeying the law when she actually entered down Val's demand in the parchment she was holding.

Sirius's sister sank down, next to Snape's immobile body, with her eyes closed. She caressed black strands of thin lank hair crawling on the floor like dead legs of a squashed spider.

"I can't bear to touch your face or to look into your proud eyes" she said hoarsely, "I can't bear to face the proof of what I know to be the truth in my heart."

"You have died, Severus," Val staggered on her knees when she spoke.

"You died, and you left me to my own devices," she squeezed out, her blue eyes a steady stream of salty water, "but what has been between us will not, cannot die."

"For all I know," Val fought for words, swallowing her tears, "my love for you will survive the Dementor's Kiss."

A camera clicked in the front row and Harry didn't have to look to know it was Rita Skeeter. No one else would be capable of doing such a thing in cold blood in the situation they were all facing, with the new headline of the _Daily Prophet_ and nothing else in mind. Then again, her Animagus form was a beetle so perhaps she could fly out through some fissure in the walls before Death remembered her, and pick up the hard copy of her work later.

"So, are you next, my dear?" Death asked Val politely, with genuine concern in his deep hollow voice. "What better way to die than to follow your star-crossed lover? First your immortal soul, and then your lovely body!"

"In your dreams," Val said, matching the Death's voice with the hollowness of her own. Her eyes were red, and dry, and it looked as if she had no tears left.

A thin jet of bright blue flame burned through the ceiling of the Wizengamot chamber, and a shrill voice resounded in the huge space above, through the hole made: SCUM! BLOOD-TRAITORS! LEAVE MY DAUGHTER ALONE!"

 _The cavalry has come,_ Harry's mind gave birth to a completely ridiculous thought. _Or a dragonry, in this case._ After all, Death didn't lie about one thing. Dragon fire could not burn through the door, or walls, but he hasn't mentioned anything about the roof.

And it was about time, because Harry had very little Polyjuice Potion left.

"Mum," Val said dryly, "it's nice of you to drop by but I really don't need your help."

She drew a wand from her black robes, a very familiar one to Harry, holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, and Harry's breathing stopped.

 _Thorough until the end… Snape gave it to her when he said his farewell…_ Harry understood, with quite some worry about his own health. Beginning to develop such keen understanding of the sly moves of his former teacher couldn't possibly be a good thing.

Val directed Harry's wand straight to the Crystal Sphere and, faster than Death, she spoke:

_Dimensio!_

Dishevelled, dignified, marvellous in her grief, Val stood and watched with utmost accomplishment how the transparent ball made of human fears of Death dwindled, and slowly disappeared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If some of this makes you sad, bear in mind that the story is not over.


	31. By a Hair's Breadth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where magic can do miracles, but the Muggle medicine rocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and especially to all of you who may have stayed with me through the last chapter.

Walburga Black followed Iggy down to the Wizengamot chamber through the opening in the roof, on a long shining black rope intertwined with golden and silver threads, enchanted from her hair. She knew Death was awaiting them inside and she imagined she must have been the only person present who was _eager_ to stand in the face of Death. The unsolvable conundrum of how to arrange a situation where she could vouch for Iggy's soul had just unexpectedly presented itself. She had always found that the logic in life of a magical person was strange at the very least, but it did exist, nonetheless. If only for a tiny bit, and in the gashes of starlight which would penetrate her solitary room in Grimmauld Place after Orion had died and she contracted dragonpox.

When they landed, the cord of hair unfurled and dropped down after them, coiling like a nest of living snakes back into long tresses on Walburga's head. Similar bonds on her chest held little Alphard securely; the boy observed his new surroundings with great interest and big, baby blue eyes.

"It's been a long time, Brunhilda," Walburga Black paid her respects to the Chief Acting Warlock of the Wizengamot first. Flattering couldn't hurt, her Slytherin mind concluded, and Brunhilda was much more reasonable in her views than Dolores. "You can't be serious about this thing with my daughter. She clearly hasn't done a thing."

"Walburga," Mrs Crouch said, gesturing to Death. "I think we have another problem."

"Death, my old friend," Ignotus Peverell said, fighting to get fully corporeal and stand on his two chubby feet. "Well met."

"Well met indeed," Death grinned from ear to ear. "And here I thought you would force my hand to take the life of your daughter before you would show up."

"I was delayed," the ghost said and added, "I will be right with you."

Iggy gave up on his attempt to look like a man, and Walburga would have laughed if his failure did not pain her. His rounded ghost form returned to hovering above the ground as high as he could, whistling softly to the ceiling. "Son," he said, "I think you and Betty had better go now. I will take it from here."

"Sir," the voice of Charlie Weasley said from very high up with hope in his voice, "there's someone awake up here! For what is worth, your other brother, not the one with the dog that I have also seen, but the one with a few hairs on his head, that one, he, he took some stone from that someone in their long lifeless sleep…"

"A stone?" Death hollered. "Cadmus! Show up!"

But the dark blue cloud only hid behind the cloud of confused Dementors, and away from Death.

"Does this surprise you?" Ignotus said. "You made your gifts in such a way that mortal wizards would kill for them. And now a mere betrayal of your cause catches you off guard?"

"I don't suppose you are here to return to me the Wand and the Cloak," Death said cynically.

"Would that I could," Ignotus said. "Alas, I have never owned the Elder Wand, I was at least spared that misery in my fourteen lives, and the Cloak has passed from father to daughter and to its rightful owner. Who will no doubt reveal her or himself at the destined moment of their death, and not when you would wish."

"I will have you killed," Death yelped, and the Dementors approached the ghost who started crying and choking from uncontrolled laughter.

"I am dead already, remember," Ignotus said, between gales of unstoppable mirth.

The Death touched his hooded head, and had no answer to that.

"Dad," Val said trying not to show emotion, sitting next to Snape's body on the cold ground. The holly and phoenix feather wand in her hand was pointed to the place where the Sphere used to be, and her forehead wrinkled in utmost concentration. "My gift is back because my husband sacrificed himself and died, but I will not be able to keep the bleeding ball in another dimension indefinitely. Could you please focus on getting rid us of it and continue your friendly conversation with Death later?"

"Did he really die?" Ignotus asked rudely about Snape and earned a murderous glare from his daughter's red-rimmed eyes."

"How radical! And impressive," the ghost concluded. "I guess I will be leaving you in good hands then."

"Can't you speak plainly for once in your life!" Val screamed at her father.

"Plainly?" Ignotus seemed to have forgotten what the world meant. "Yes, most certainly. But first things first."

"Dear witches and wizards," the chubby ghost called to the attention of the Wizengamot, "now it's time for Patronuses, please, so that you can hear the confession of an old ghost in your right minds!"

Shyly, a silver bear was joined by a silver eagle, a flock of buzzing silver insects and many more, flooding the space of darkness with unquenchable light. The Dementors backed off to the ceiling, and floated out through the hole, one by one, without Death being the wiser for it.

He only had eyes for Ignotus, if he had eyes at all, and Walburga thought that the hatred Death radiated towards her former lover could almost be eaten with a spoon. Others have noticed the Death's focus too. Not one, but two new ropes fell to the chamber through the roof as soon as the Dementors saw fit to leave, one bristle, lank and orange, and another raven black, of entangled curly hair. The wizards and witches seated behind Death's back were the first ones to get the hint. In silence they walked to the ropes and climbed to safety, one by one.

 _Bella knows my spell, and young Charlie is learning fast,_ Walburga thought, proud of her niece and her friend. The good thing with climbing the magical rope was that it caused almost no disturbance that the Accidental Magic Department could trace, and paradoxally, in their case, neither could Death, cheated behind his back. Walburga invented the spell to climb trees as a young girl, when her parents weren't watching, and she never got caught.

"This is much more pleasant, don't you think," Iggy addressed the gathering again. "And it's immediately much warmer without the precious company of our valuable Dementing magical relatives. Please, friends, do take your seats now. You all heard how my daughter asked me to speak the truth for once in my life. The truth that I didn't want to accept until today is that this is not my first but my fourteenth life. I am not merely the fourteenth person in my family that has the same name as I wished to believe."

"I was the unfortunate youngest one of the Peverell brothers who defied death a very long time ago, asked for an Invisibility Cloak to hide from him, and decided to die when he so wished, or when he felt it was his time. So unlike his even more unfortunate brothers, who died very soon in great misery as a consequence of the gifts they foolishly asked for."

"But Death was cunning and he tricked the youngest brother too."

"When he gave him the Cloak, Death uttered the condition under his hollow voice that he would not let the youngest brother die until such time that the fool would bow to the Death's dominion over all life. And die in mortal fear of him. And if he wouldn't do it, he was condemned to be reborn, and every next life he would live would be a life of misery: Death would play nasty tricks on his loved ones in every life, and they would betray him, abandon him, or die. But in every life without fault so far, I did not bow to the Death's wishes and I was reborn again."

"For no matter what happened to me and what horrible way of dying I or my loved ones faced in each life, I never admitted the Death's dominion. Because it is a lie. Death simply is, he doesn't rule us. He is the last fact of life and nothing more. I expect he will leave this place, and let you all go in peace, once he sees to it that I am reborn again."

"I could agree to that condition," Death said, very carefully weighing his words.

"So here you have me, Death," the ghost said simply, "and for the fourteenth time I will pass to the other side with acceptance, and not with fear."

"Iggy, wait a second," Walburga said nervously, trying to grope her former lover, catching only thin air when her aristocratic painted arm passed through his ethereal substance. "Iggy, he's lying."

The ghost turned to face her but there was still determination in his silvery eyes.

"Right, Iggy, I understand," Walburga pleaded. "I will let you go, I will let you do as you wish, just please, please, before you do, I also have a confession to make. It's a day for confessions, what harm can they cause? Can you hear me out? Please?"

"I'm sure it will be a touchy one," Death mocked her. "Do bring salt to the wounds of my best friend here whom you abandoned when he needed you most."

"That's one way of putting it," Walburga said with mischief in her old eyes, glowing proudly in very Slytherin grey and green. "Just one little thing before I start," she stuttered and walked to Val.

"Daughter," she told her, "you will look after him for a while, won't you?"

And with a graceful wave of arms, Mrs Black moved her infant grandson from her chest to her daughter's, shaping the younger witch's dishevelled hair into an adequate carrier. The younger woman seemed dead, immobile, sunken into passivity from which she would not wake, all of her concentration flowing to the dimension shift spell she strived to maintain.

"There," Walburga said peacefully, and patted her daughter's head, "I trust you not to let Alphard fall. I will see you one day again, but not in a while."

Walburga Black placed herself between her lover and his cowled enemy, regal and unimpressed.

"Unce upon a time there was a young witch from good family who loved Ignotus Peverell in his fourteenth life, as dearly as she possibly could," Walburga started her tale. "And yet after many years together she was convinced he betrayed her. She lost his child, or so she thought. Too soon, she became mother to two more children to whom she had nothing left to give. Her capacity to love was gone. So she abandoned them to house-elves and friends in school for she had no heart left to be a mother to them, leaving them only a garment each, imbued with old mother's magic for protection. She left them a part of her life force for she had no love left to give, and charmed her gifts so that they would turn anything that would happen to her children while they were wearing the enchanted clothing, no matter how hopeless it seemed, into good. It was Felix Felicis in textile, if you wish, given by a bad mother who could find no strength to do her duty."

"Time passed, and she did a terrible thing to herself in her own death in throes of dragonpox. She cut her own soul in half with the darkest magic she was able to do, and glued half of it to a portrait of her, hiding it behind the portrait personality. The part that died remained cursed, not living, nor dead, whinnying in the winter wind, haunting the house she lived in. Still it was nothing compared to the suffering of the living part in the portrait. Every day she was subject to such physical pain that her only relief was to shout obscenities through her painting frame to anyone who dared open the curtains to see her. But she had to endure this because somewhere, she believed, she had to believe, that her lover would be back one day and explain to her why he left her, and what she did to deserve it. She wanted to know how she failed him, for him to run away from her in the last stages of her pregnancy, for him not to help her bury their daughter. She had to know why he never loved her as her family claimed."

"How sad," Death mocked Walburga's story.

"Here our tale and my confession become interesting," Walburga said proudly. "The terrible violence she committed against herself in order to linger among the living for much longer than the nature would allow made her see things. She saw the dreams of her son Regulus when he could not be a Death Eater any longer and she wept. She saw the dreams her son Sirius had of Dementors when he escaped from Azkaban and returned to live in her family home. It was another form of torture she inflicted on herself."

"Dreams, Walburga?" Ignotus asked painfully, and Wally thought for a second that if the ghosts could cry, his tears would run freely like autumn rain.

"Dreams?" Death was curious as well.

And the Wizengamot sighed in expectation. Almost one quarter of the amphitheatre behind Death gaped half empty, meaning that whoever wanted to leave from there, had left.

"Death tricked the younger brother," she continued the tale, "but he was not the master of all things. Other forces, the guardian forces would tell Ignotus the truth in his dreams, the dreams the youngest brother would not remember in his waking state. And Death didn't reckon with the changing world of magic, and the forces of darkness not even he controlled entirely. He didn't know that a desperate witch would see the dreams of others so as to suffer more and pay for her sins."

"And so she learned. Ignotus would be able to die in peace if another soul vouched for him and promised to take his place in the face of Death."

Death looked as if he wanted to leave abruptly, but Walburga fearlessly gripped his bony hand and spoke some more. "All magic she knew did not teach the poor witch how to arrive to the presence of Death. But I am now facing you, by chance or by destiny, I don't particularly care to know why."

Death tried to get his arm out of her iron grip but Walburga Black continued mercilessly and finished what she had to say. "In your face, Death, I vouch with my soul for Ignotus Peverell. I give my soul for his. It's not the best soul. It's not even a good soul. But it remains a soul and it is mine to give."

The ground of the Wizengamot chamber shook, and Death reluctantly nodded.

"Good," Walburga said and turned her attention to Iggy. "Iggy, I'll just go now. I've been out of my portrait longer than ever and it's already a miracle I lasted this much."

"Wally… the others, he will still harm the others when the dimension shift fails… if I don't give him what he wants."

"He would have done it anyway, Iggy. He just lied to you again. Look at his sneer!"

One look at the face of Death was enough to establish that Walburga was telling the truth.

"And if he was saying the truth?" Iggy still had to ask. "Would you sacrifice all of them for my past mistakes, even our own daughter for Merlin's sake?"

"Don't ask me such things if you want an honest answer," Walburga said, "I'm a selfish Slytherin, remember. Of course I would!"

As an afterthought, glancing at Val, she added, "But I wish to believe that our daughter will find her own way out of this situation. I wouldn't expect any less of her and her magical talents. Just like that stupid Gryffindor son of mine is capable of flying into this room right now and killing himself for real in a misplaced effort to save everyone else. I do hope that that Dumbledore fiancée of his he managed to pick up somewhere on the way will lend him some moderation and intelligence."

There was one more farewell to make. Walburga ignored the Death's scowl, and his avid look towards the hand in which her daughter held the wand, probably wishing it to falter sooner. She walked to the pink piece of magical rubbish whose exact titles at any time she was most unable to repeat.

"Dolores," she told her, taking the wand out of her sausage-like fingers. "You don't mind if I take it, do you? The only spell I've ever seen you do with precision is a Patronus, it must be for the love you bear your cats."

Walburga lowered her voice to a threatening whisper, "If my daughter joins me soon, I will hold you responsible. Trust me on this, I _will_ haunt you and your furry pets from my grave until you regret the day you were born"

The mother of three stood on the place where the Crystal Sphere should have been, keeping Death's gaze away from two ropes of hair retracting towards the ceiling. No one could be saved through there any more.

She looked at Iggy and was glad that she was so much smarter than him in some things so he probably had no idea what exactly she was going to do. Before Death found a way to trick her as well. She pointed the wand at her painted feet and felt only immense relief because she was about to end the suffering she inflicted upon herself.

" _Ignis Maxima,"_ she whispered.

Walburga Black knew that being burned alive should hurt, but somehow, it did not.

xxxxxxx

Ariana stared at the closed door of the Wizengamot chamber and the Patronus shaped as a dragon, guarding it.

Sirius had already tried to drive through it with his time travelling motorcycle, but the only result was a brand new series of burns on his arms and a damaged front wheel.

The door itself did not budge.

"Vulnera Sanentur," Ariana murmured over his injured arms, and Sirius winced.

"Snape's stuff," he said with annoyance. "Can't you think of something else?"

Ariana gave him a bright smile and complaining immediately stopped, before she offered an inquisitive look to the witch who pulled a long something in direction of the door.

"It cannot be open," the witch lamented, "but occasionally we can hear something with the help of this Extendable Ear. They are sold by those red haired brothers. Do you know them, honey? Their hair is a bit more ginger than yours…"

"What did you hear?" Ariana asked, ignoring the attempts of the witch to touch her hair and the stares of two wizards next to her who observed her figure with their mouths open, until Sirius positively growled on them, and nearly turned into his dog form to show them not to venture on his territory.

"Something about Death. He seems to be in there," the witch scratched her head.

"Anything about opening the door, maybe?" Sirius inquired.

"Well, they mentioned a mush spell, imagine, I've never heard anything like that?"

"Mush, I wonder," Ariana said remembering the purple fumes which subdued her will to Grindelwald's, and the orange ones which surged from her own body when the Veil took her to the future.

"Step back," she said, certain, summoning all the darkness in her soul until there was no light left. "Sirius, you too. Get them out of the way."

"What will you do to yourself?" her lover asked.

"Nothing I haven't done before," was a caustic reply, but her face must have changed to reveal what she was, and certainly for the worse, because Sirius looked at her sadly and evacuated the others.

 _He loves me not,_ Ariana thought. _And when he remembers all the truth about what I have done, he will abandon me. It will all have been a beautiful dream._ The devastating thought moved a burden of jealousy in the pit of her stomach, and she started hating Sirius for doing this to her more than she ever hated her mother, Albus, or even Gellert.

 _You betrayed me, Sirius,_ dark hatred rolled in her thoughts. She couldn't look at him. She hoped he had a good sense to stand far enough from her, the monster, the mother of his child who was a monster, because she would not spare him. They all wanted to hurt her and they were all going to die. She felt the magic stir inside her as she didn't for a very long time. Since the past. Since her mother. Since the Muggle boys… Images of boys' bodies torn apart returned. It was good.

Now she was enraged and she could see through the closed door. Impatiently, she observed the hooded figure, the ghost, Sirius's mother, Val kneeling next to Severus. What was one door for her power? They would all pay, they all loved Sirius, Sirius was their hero, and she was the abomination, the freak.

What was Death in comparison with the evil stored in her soul?

With that thought it felt as if Ariana's aggressive thoughts rolled forward. An orange cloud attacked the unbreakable door, corroded it and dislocated it. The hinges creaked and the old wood closed with dark magic opened at the onslaught of dark magic more powerful than the one that wove it together. For at that moment, Ariana hated everyone who had ever hurt her more fiercely than Death hated all life.

The door squeaked one more time, shook violently, and tumbled down.

Orange mush walked straight into the Wizengamot Chamber and Ariana imagined it going up in flames like her mother's room after the incident. But before she could perpetrate any further devastation, a hand was on her arm, male hand, real, steady, warm...

"Hey, that was just amazing," Sirius said, his voice calm like water, not the suspicious one which wanted to question her actions. An impossibly long arm was wrapped around her shoulders, and Ariana slumped inwards, and backwards, defeated, diminished, weak, the orange cloud of malice and power sucked back into the dark bottom of her being where it surged from. Ashamed of everything she had thought about her love, she took his hand and made a tentative step into the Wizengamot chamber, only to witness Walburga Black's portrait go up in flames, escaping a clumsy fleshless embrace of Ignotus Peverell who tried to stop her.

"Vow," Sirius said, between ironic and impressed, "Mum left with style."

And just like that, he followed Ariana in.

The wizards in the last row of seats turned towards them and yelled, "Sirius Black, he's up here! He must have Apparated from down there. He opened the door despite what the Death said that it couldn't be done!"

Ariana looked around and, mercifully, her Sirius was the only Sirius visible in the chamber. She wondered where the second version impersonated by Harry Potter was hiding. Wizards ran to the exit in mass; the multitude of hurried bodies and feet would have ran over Sirius and Ariana if they were not as tall as they were. They ended up plastered to the wall, pulling closer to the masonry, waiting for the wizarding sea to ebb. A voice said something under their waists. Ariana looked down and saw Sirius's godson crawling towards them on all fours, in robes three sizes too big for him. Harry put his glasses back on his nose in haste, winning a fight against a huge pocket of his robes in order to find them.

"Hi, Sirius, you came just on time to save most of them from certain Death. There is only one little problem left to resolve. See, Val there is holding this dimension spell together, but she will fail because it takes too much energy if I figured this correctly. Then a Crystal Bowl will appear, which released Death into the world, or the Death used it to release itself. The order of things makes no matter, " Harry whispered frantically. "I believe we have to destroy it, or send it far away, but I don't know how far is far enough."

xxxxxxxx

"Stay up here, Harry, and hide, only for a while more," Sirius said. "I'd ask you to leave for your safety, but I know that you'd not listen, as I would not listen to such advice myself. But please just stay up here for a bit. Trust me like you did on the day when we first met, despite having no reason to. You know, when you still thought I was a Death Eater and a mass murderer who betrayed your parents. Please."

Harry blinked away an invisible tear as he almost always did when he would remembered James and Lily. Sirius knew he would obey, at first, in any case, but Ariana was another matter entirely. He had nothing he could say to her that could make her understand. He hoped she would forgive him, and maybe realise why he had to do it, in time.

She accompanied him when he started descending the steep stairs. She went softly after him, his love, his shadow, still somewhat shaky after what she did to that door. Sirius sighed as he realised she knew him well enough to set aside her personal anguish over the kind of magic she summoned. She was already afraid that he'd do something foolish. And she would not be proved wrong.

 _A good guess, my love,_ he thought, _I guess I'm quite predictable in my actions. I wish I could have shown you so many things. But you will see them for yourself now. And with Alphard._

More than half of the Wizengamot was now empty, and those with weaker hearts were still pouring out through the door, wide open. But a great number of witches and wizards still lingered as if they were unable to stop following the morbid events staged for them in the courtroom or whatever the Wizengamot had become. The curious and those too brave to leave stayed put, against their better judgement.

Sirius was levitating his bike in front of him on the way down, descending the giant steps of the amphitheatre one by one, until he set the bike down next to the empty chair for the accused.

"Mr Black," Fudge attacked him verbally from the Ministry lines with a bleeding nose, "don't believe for a second that I will not sue you over this horrendous injury you inflicted to my body and my dignity."

Sirius could only give him a puzzled look, having no idea what the wizard was talking about. After a second thought, he decided he never liked Fudge, so he turned off his course to greet him with a slight punch in the eye, hoping it would bruise charmingly the next day. "Just a small addition then, to your bodily and spiritual pain. I have Galleons enough to pay for the damages," he observed for the record.

Brunhilda Crouch was taking notes, only she knew of what. Ignotus Peverell hovered aimlessly around the room, avoiding a black and a blue cloud sailing after him. Val, _his sister_ , looked dead, sitting on the floor next to equally dead looking body of Snivellus. Sirius decided not to dwell on that part of the scene. Or his sister's loss risked becoming his own and he'd lose his determination to do what had to be done. Snape always seemed so _indestructible._ As if he was _meant_ to annoy the students for ages.

"Sister," Sirius proceeded with the necessary, "I think I know what to do about the Sphere. But you have to let me see it for a moment."

Val nodded, absent-minded, not looking in Sirius's direction.

"Aren't you afraid of me, Sirius Black?" Death tried to interfere.

"Me?" he asked back, "not at all. I was about to die as it is far too many times already. And guess what my best mate told me the other day? The last enemy to be defeated is Death. I believed him. More than I believe anything you say."

"I feel generous today, Sirius, my friend. You could get in my good graces," Death said. "I tell you now, if you will believe me, the following. If you tell me where to find the Veil of Death, I will let all of your friends here live. I will let the sleepers in Hogwarts wake. It's in my power to do that. You were the last one who used the Veil, weren't you?"

"The Veil of Death?" Sirius asked. "I don't know what you mean. I have fallen behind an ugly curtain, once, long ago. But now I realise that this curtain was neither a curtain, nor a Veil to start with. I firmly believe that, whatever that object is in reality, and I for one have no idea what it is, it does not belong to Death. So I don't see why I should reveal it to you. It isn't yours.  Even if some uninformed wizards here in the Ministry gave it the name that would make it seem so."

Death ground his teeth in anger and did not say a word.

Ariana joined Sirius in the middle of the chamber. Two wizards and a witch which they had found at the closed door followed her and took empty seats in the first row of the Wizengamot, attentively watching the tall couple.

"Sirius, what will you do?" Ariana wanted to know all of a sudden.

"Nothing," he said, "time for you to step back now. You did your part with the door and now I have to do mine."

"We are in this together," he lied and she could hear it, he knew. But she couldn't think of what to say immediately, and that was good enough.

"Val," Sirius called out as he straddled his motorcycle, bringing it into position only a few steps away from his grieving sister. "Trust me. Release the spell. I have it under control, but I have to see the damn thing."

Val dropped the wand and stood up to hand little Alphard to Ariana. "Look," she said, "mommy is here."

The beautiful Crystal Sphere appeared spinning out of nowhere, ten feet away from Sirius in the centre of the room. Sirius imagined a place in space as far away from Earth as possible, where only the soulless stars would keep company to a weapon made of human hopes and fears, and where it would never come close to any living being or gain power over it. He hoped that such place existed in the black density of the uncharted skies above. He wondered if he was going to be able to keep his eyes open long enough to see it, before the void would devour him and Sirius Orion Black, father of Alphard, would be no more.

 _I will be a star in the end,_ he thought. _Great-great-grandfather, did you fly to see the stars before you returned to me to die and to force me to fulfil the destiny you have foreseen for me, the one of rehabilitating our family? What of my own destiny? What of me? What of Alphard and Ariana? Why does it have to end here? I had hopes for a different outcome, but hope is for fools..._

He hoped that the stars were beautiful and worth seeing, not only shining, scary and hot. He kicked the engine and gripped the handlebars tightly, focusing on the deserted corner of the unknown space he invented in his mind and where he very much wanted to send the Crystal Bowl flying.

Death shouted: "Noooo!"

 _The first one to understand what I am about to do_ , Sirius had to give credit to Death. He was not stupid. Or maybe he learned from old Phineas Nigellus after his death what the bike he so devotedly enchanted could do.

The motorcycle caught speed slower than Sirius would have liked and suddenly Death was in his way.

 _Time to see if it can fly through you when it couldn't fly through the door you locked,_ Sirius thought absurdly.

Death was caught on the bike's front wheel which, predictably, started catching fire. He stretched his bony arms to reach Sirius, but the Gryffindor only leaned backwards on his bike seat, grinning like crazy, enjoying his imminent victory.

The arms of Death were too short.

Sirius spied under the Death's cowl in curiosity, but there was no face to be seen. He focused harder on the space he had in mind and the seconds to the impact appeared to last longer than a lifetime.

A voice vaguely similar to Bella's shouted nervously, lacking force, still shaken with personal grief. "Sirius, jump!"

He had to think hard to realise it was not Bella. It was his sister. He even had two seconds to wonder why the last words his sister had chosen to direct at him were to read the stupid words from the back of the T-shirt he was wearing.

"Sirius, jump!" Ariana's crystal voice joined her, screaming out her lungs in despair. "You are a bloody wizard! You can use your wand!"

But it was the living voice of his dead great-great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus Black miraculously resurrected from the void, which finally lit a light of reason in Sirius's rash mind.

"Jump, Sirius, NOW!" the deep voice roared. Sirius blinked, processed the meaning of the message and understood.

The possibility he did not see before.

Sirius jumped off the motorcycle in the very moment before it plunged into the belly of the Crystal Sphere, taking the contraption up to the hole in the ceiling, with Death curled helplessly around the bike's front wheel which turned in incessant motion. Sirius's mind worked just for a little bit longer, as he projected his thoughts of the desired destination behind the flying bike with his wand. He would believe for the rest of his life, even if no one else would, that a few drops of dark blue liquid surged out of the tip of his wand, as brilliant sparks of something that went beyond any sound magical explanation of what he just did. _The liquid thoughts of angels_ , he remembered. _A miracle._

The sparks traced and followed the motorcycle which rushed forward on its own. The Sphere was mercilessly driven away when the bike matched the speed of light in front of Sirius's wary eyes. Against his will, the device dragged the Sphere's master back to the nothingness from whence he came.

Arms Sirius wished to have around him all the time encircled him gently from the back. They stretched farther than his own, farther than Death's, stirring him deeply, as no one else could.

"Ariana," he whispered. "Will you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," she said. "I wouldn't have settled for anything less from the man I love."

Sirius couldn't believe his ears. He turned around and saw Alphard wrapped in the front part of her always too wide, exuberant robes. Then he smiled at both of them, and let her embrace him in silence, as far as it could be done with Alphard between them. He kept smiling, spent, thoroughly done with magic for the day; understood, content, astonished, tired, blessed, happy.

xxxxxxx

"Oh my," said the wizard with bright red robes turned upside down, seated in the first row, clapping to Sirius, as if he had just witnessed a good circus act. "That was some display of… magic… I guess." He stood up, forgetting his soft yellow hat on the chair, and hurried breathless towards Val, amidst the general uproar among the remaining Members of the Wizengamot that followed the disappearance of the Sphere.

"Ms Peverell. are you quite all right?" the queer wizard asked.

Val would not answer.

The strange wizard kneeled next to her, and took the hand of her fallen companion whom she dared not touch, apart from his hair. He touched Snape's neck as well.

"He is quite alive, " the odd man stated with conviction. "Why were you afraid to check his pulse?"

Val's eyes became lit with hope she didn't dare feel. "Because he can't be, I just know. If I have my gift back, he can't be alive! The only way I can have my gift back is if he is dead..."

Her hands flew to her husband's face against her will. She froze.

"How?" she asked the man who opened her eyes, observing his odd attire. A mute desire for clarification oozed from her pale watery gaze, lined red from crying.

Trying hard to keep his badly dressed robes in one place, fighting with the excess of textile, the man answered. "I don't know that. But I am a medical doctor by education, and I can tell a living body from a corpse. As I can only hope to pay back for the smallest part of your efforts on behalf of my people in the past two years, Ms Peverell, by helping your friend, if you so wish. He lost consciousness and we have to turn him sideways. Don't you, _wizarding_ healers, I hear that is the name of the profession among you, do that as well?"

The man laboriously turned Snape in a proper Muggle style first aid position for the fainted, making it easier for him to breathe. Val helped with uncertain hands. She found that she was much too nervous to hold a wand and try any healing spell she knew. It would have to wait.

"There," the Muggle doctor patted Snape's back with care, "I would diagnose him with chronic lack of sleep, undernourishment and stress, without knowing any details about his condition. Stress can kill you, you know?"

"Tell me about it," Val said, touching Snape's face again, very gently. Her husband would get enough air now. Her eyes were shooting looks of disbelief and shock was written all over her pale face. She dropped someone else's wand she had been holding, but she remained tense and on the edge.

"What he needs now is a warm bed and a familiar face to regain his senses," the doctor said.

Val couldn't agree more. She was slowly beginning to function again. Her lungs opened briefly, to let in some air for herself, and to let out one last sob, stuck in her throat, and threatening to choke her.

"If I can be of any further assistance to you, Ms Peverell, please, don't hesitate to ask," the _doctor_ added.

Val smiled brightly, relieved beyond count, and said, "Thank you so much for coming, Prime Minister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start looking better from now on, don't they?


	32. The Old and the Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the truth cannot be twisted

Severus Snape opened his black eyes, inhaling sharply the familiar air of his childhood, thickened with smog.

He was on the playground where he had met Lily for the first time, but all its surroundings were entirely gone. There were two swings, but there were no trees or grass where they were supposed to be, not even the modest shrubbery that managed to grow behind the industrial walls fallen into disuse. A large, looming grey nothingness surrounded the swings. He was swinging on one of them, up and down, in great, crazy speed. A beautiful red haired woman occupied another, her long legs dangling in a pair of comfortable Muggle jeans.

Severus didn't have to look twice or hear her musical voice to know who she was.

Lily ...

 _And I thought, I thought, I assumed,_ Snape's sorrow suddenly had no end. He was drowning in it like in a sea of black blood, with its water risen high to wash him away. But the least he could do was to be civil, for once. And tell Lily how sorry he was. About calling her Mudblood. About everything. After all, he only had the eternity of time left in order to atone for the transgressions he committed in his young age. Didn't he?

"Sev," she spoke first. "How have you been?"

"Never better," he replied dryly, unable to ask for her forgiveness in words, immediately resigned with the fact of his death, where he had dared hope, against all hope, to live. To learn how to play trumpet in his forties. To sip tea in the dungeons when the students lacking any brightness finally left the premises.

Death was always a possibility and here it was. There was no use in crying over spilled milk.

"And here I thought you would tell me more about yourself. Or about Harry. You did help him out in your own particular way, didn't you?"

"Not sure if _Potter_ would call that helpful," Snape muttered poisonously.

"You were not happy to see me here. Not at first," Lily commented with curiosity in her voice. "When you opened your eyes, you regretted what you saw. Don't bother lying that you didn't. Just tell me why."

Snape looked down, and his long body and loose hair cast shadows on the gloomy soil under his feet. Shadows of gold and silver on chestnut, the glimmer Val had been hiding in her hair most of her life. But he couldn't bring himself to talk about her to Lily. Not now. Not ever. It wouldn't be fair. He was not sure to whom of the three of them but it still wouldn't be fair.

It would be most unfair.

"Where do the other dead go?" he asked, suddenly worried. _I do so hope that Voldermot went elsewhere,_ he thought. _And that there is a special heaven for dead boa constrictors. A proper Slytherin place where they feel at home._ But the most blazing worry in his, under normal conditions, rather selfish mind, was that his sacrifice may have only slightly delayed the pre-matured encounter of everyone else stuck in the Wizengamot chamber with Death.

 _If the part of my too fast constructed magical theory assuming that Val would regain her gift did not work either, she is the first to go,_ Severus knew. _if for nothing else then for being unable to keep her mouth shut if Dolores or Death say another word._

"Dead? Oh, I see," Lily said and smiled. "So Harry didn't tell you how he recently met Albus at the King's Cross station."

"What?" Snape said, and far-fetched theories danced again in his brilliant mind, fooling him with hope. He suffered, and he hoped and he waited for Lily to explain.

"Yes, Sev, it is as you thought. You've always been rather smart," his first love said, smiling, carelessly removing a fire-coloured, lost lock of hair from the uniquely green pools of secrets she had for eyes. "You succeeded in killing the part of your soul you broke off willingly. The rest of you, well, it's up to you. As it was up to Harry."

"Will you hate me if I go back?" Snape finally managed to ask Lily something he actually wanted to ask her.

"No, why? I left my own way long ago, didn't I?"

"Still..." he said. And then he added, more timid, a boy of eleven all over again. "I'm so sorry, Lily. For overhearing the stupid prophecy and repeating it to Voldemort. For not being a better spy and finding out Peter was a traitor on time. For calling you names."

"For.. everything," he said, thinking of his love for her, and his most recent betrayal of that love in the arms of another woman. A most extraordinary witch who had tolerated his peskiness despite being a match for him in magical talents ever since he met her. Val teased him, yes, but also covered his back and worked with him as a trusted companion.

Snape uniquely sallow complexion lost some of its specific appeal, in favour of a tinge of healthy looking pink skin, when all his blood, and most of his thoughts, conscious or not, journeyed back to the room that belonged to Regulus. He would have given anything to repeat only one more time what they did in there. Just once. To properly say farewell. Good-bye. So long. Twat, as Albus used to say; and for the first time Severus believed he understood him. When nothing else helped, a bit of nonsense did.

Lily gave him a knowledgeable smile.

"Do you feel... _lighter_ now ?"

"Like liquid air devoid of any magic," Snape said cynically, returning to then and there.

"Well then, I guess, you are good to go," Lily said, "I look forward to seeing you later, hopefully quite some time from now. James and I are looking for partners to play cards with. It is tiresome, at times, the life everlasting..."

"What?" Snape tried to ask again, but Lily's image faded, and the swing launched him forward into a black abyss from which he collapsed onto some familiar too cold ground with a thunderous thud. He never heard Lily's farewell words to him.

"Some people never know love," Lily said, thoughtfully, "some find it once and are happy to live for it, for all days of their lives."

"And very few, very few" she whispered, "are blessed for having loved not only once, but twice, in the short burn of their mortal existence."

She smiled to the empty swing and finished her chain of thoughts.

"I am so glad, Severus, that you received such blessing now."

And then, disappearing into the thin air the dreams were made off, she added.

"As did I, long ago."

xxxxxx

Fudge contemplated possible Daily Prophet headlines for the following day. _Exclusive by Rita Skeeter: "My Love is Stronger than a Dementor's Kiss – corrupt Ministry in collusion with Death and the Dementors condemns two star-crossed lovers to die"_   would sell very well, he thought, seriously considering emigrating to Brazil. lf only Miss Peverell, or Black, did not come originally from there; he had no desire to meet any vindictive more distant members of her family. Fudge swore he would not wait in London for Umbridge's missteps to bring forth their sore fruits. He had made enough of his own.

The possible headline and beginning of an article in the _Quibbler_ dawned on him as well, further ruining his already acrid mood: _"Have you ever heard of a Blast-Ended Skrewt with the intelligence of a Flubberworm? Minister Dolores Jane Umbridge may merit the honourable title after she had condemned to extinction two innocent creatures, best friends of the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks of Sweden…"_

Umbridge continued making one mistake after another.

"Thank you, Mr Black," she had a nerve to say to Sirius Black, pink and complacent in her cardigan, "for helping us restore order in the proceedings. I believe we have established now beyond reasonable doubt that dimension shifting is an illegal and dangerous spell..."

Luckily the man in question was absorbed in hugging his… _family?_ thought Fudge, thoroughly injured by Black moments ago. He exhaled with relief noticing that Sirius kept his wand down, for the time being.

Dolores blabbered on, completely ignoring the flabbergasted looks of the remaining Members of the Wizengamot. Even the more ignorant among them clearly _must_ have noticed that one wizard quite willingly accepted to die so that the illegal spell in question would have a chance to all save their hides. No living being could remain indifferent to such a thing. _Except Umbridge. Maybe she is not human._ Rita Skeeter kept writing, with an indestructible sneer on her face.

Ignotus Peverell turned almost opaque, which in ghosts equalled the purple colour of rage humans could acquire, gliding defensively between her daughter and her would be accuser and judge. "I call upon the Honourable Members of the Wizengamot still present to consider the Decree number 39/39.12765 of Minister Bagnold from 1945 admitting that Dimension Shifting is an unexplored area of magic deserving further study before a final ruling on its legality could be established, issued at the demand of a proven Dimension Shifter, Ignotus Peverell, born in Brazil of Brazilian mother Maria do Céu Pinto and an unknown presumably American father. This decree suspends the application of the old law on the illegality of Dimension Shifting."

"Mister," Fudge dared to speak after all, believing he might have a point, before Dolores would sink them all in her lies. "Testimonies of ghosts are not admissible –"

"I am not testifying! I am quoting legislation in force!" roared Peverell as the two dark blue watery clouds that used to be his brothers, acolytes of death, tried to soothe his ire by letting a calming drizzle rain down on him from two sides. "And I was accidentally alive when this decree was passed! In case you have somewhere a law against ghosts making demands."

Ignotus suddenly pulled his trumpet out of nowhere and blew it hard. The sound of a tune full of yearning made a different rain fall, that of the paper versions of the said decree flying into the room, one for each Wizengamot Member in attendance, among unstoppable whispers and rattling of quills. Some witches clapped and wizards whistled at the marvellous exhibition of magic.

"What about the hospital for the Death Eaters you were running with your daughter?" Fudge was encouraged by the ghost's insolence. Maybe the day could still be saved and he could stay in England and enjoy his retirement in the countryside. "Surely this is enough for a sentence in Azkaban."

"You didn't even ask Val about that in the process," a shorter someone said ferociously behind the broad back of Sirius Black and his... _Who? What? Mistress? Wife?_ thought Fudge. The familiar voice of Harry Potter in hiding launched a violent attack, further amazed that petty evil had an endless quality to itself. "And all the Death Eaters are either dead or asleep at Hogwarts! You have no proof!"

"Not all," the red haired beauty said, pointing behind Fudge. "Dawlish there is a Death Eater, maybe he can enlighten us."

And just like that, she summoned the man to come flying to her as if she had Accioed a broom. She did it wandless, with such power as Fudge had seen in only one wizard, who also had an uncouth mane of auburn hair in his youth. _No,_ he thought, _Dumbledore's sister died and he did not have a daughter. It cannot be._

The witch did not stop at what she did; she produced a Muggle photo image from her robes and ordered, _Engorgio!_ The picture increased showing Dawlish in Death Eater robes using and unforgivable Killing Curse on whoever was taking the photo for all to see.

"The boy was called Colin Creevey," she said with sadness and anger. "He was not of an age to fight. Here is your _brave_ Auror, Honourable Members of the Wizengamot, a _trusted_ official of the Interim Minister. A _murderer_ of your children."

Dawlish did not even try to deny an accusation, but surprisingly he still found the stamina to try and accuse Val: "I did come to her clinic, as a Death Eater."

The statement earned him an attack by a cloud of dark orange mush, stemming from nowhere; the same one that burned through the Wizengamit door, enchanted by Death itself. The orange fumes wrapped themselves around the Auror's throat until his breathing almost stopped.

For the rest of the proceedings, John Dawlish sat on the floor, drooling and cooing like a six-months old.

Val stepped forward and declared: "I did run a hospital, an apothecary shop and a pub. All these are legal activities. The Death Eaters were indeed coming to the hospital. But they were also coming to St Mungos and to the Ministry. They seemed to be quite welcome everywhere until the Chosen One defeated Voldemort. I only treated those in need of help. I do not see why that should pose any problem."

"Harry Potter has disappeared. The Ministry believes that Voldemort died of natural causes that had nothing to do with that boy," Umbridge said complacently, when the man in bright red robes, who fought hard to keep his garments and his tasteless hat on, finally addressed the gathering.

"Honourable Members of the Parliament…" the man started. "I wanted to say Quizzengamot…"

"Wizengamot," Mrs Marchbanks corrected the man politely, noting his unease.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, er… witches and wizards of the Whoozingamot… a portrait serving as a liaison between our two worlds, that is yours, the magical one, and ours, the Miracle one, sorry, I wanted to say Muggle one, you know, us, the normal ones, no magic and that... So, in short, and not to make it long, this portrait informed me of the grave thing that was about to pass. The Statute of Secrecy gives a possibility for you to contact me in dire circumstances. I invoke my right to speak to you now, as it has been brought to my knowledge that you intend to sentence Ms Val Peverell, alias Ms Lyra Walburga Black as I have learned her full name to be, to the equivalent of the death penalty in your judicial system."

"Who are you and how do you know Miss Black?" asked Umbridge.

"Why, obviously he's the Muggle Prime Minister," stated a suddenly very tired Cornelius Fudge, with resigned recognition in his voice. _I should have known,_ he fidgeted with his own lime coloured hat, so much more presentable than the almost sun like yellow oddity the Muggle leader chose to wear. Then again, hiding from Death under one of the tables he couldn't have seen all that well the unusual man who proclaimed to be a healer, and immediately discredited his profession by announcing against every fact, magical or other, that Snape was alive. The day definitely didn't bode well any longer. Fudge considered grimly how both he and Umbridge might choose to pass the rest of their lives working as house-elves, under cover from any other member of the magical community

"Indeed, Mr Fudge. I had a pleasure to meet you when you were the outgoing Minister in some difficult circumstances. Madam Interim Minister…" the Muggle Prime Minister finally addressed Umbridge, bending one knee as an old fashioned gentleman. He would have kissed her hand, if Dolores didn't retrieve it with an embarrassed Ooh! on her pouty wrinkled lips. "We have been looking for Ms Black for more than a week now. Our Queen will appoint her a Member of the Order of Merit for saving countless lives in the last two years since she arrived to England. All victims have been caught in strange natural phenomena we could not explain and would have most certainly died without her help. Many of them were young children. And you Mr Fudge, you explained to me long time ago that those natural phenomena were nothing else but the magic of some dark wizard with whom some of you were at war."

"We helped you look for Sirius Black when you told us he was a dangerous criminal on the run only to find out that you have made a mistake. Now we demand, in the name of the peaceful coexistence of our kind with yours, and the preservation of the Statute of Secrecy, that Ms Black is immediately absolved of all charges and released from custody, for her selfless unpaid labour in favour of the people I represent."

The Muggle Prime Minister pulled out a thin metal box with a screen from his wrongly arranged robes, which finally dropped fully to the ground. At least his fluffy hat still remained on. Abandoning all pretence of wearing robes, he stepped out of the red puddle of folds, set the device in front of Umbridge, pressed a button on it, and said matter-of-factly when the button blinked red. "All lives Ms Black saved are recorded here. Take a good look."

A few witches fainted loudly at the sight of mysterious Muggle technology emitting small red and green lights on the side and moving images in the middle. Dolores was trying to close the box to no avail. Her wand had been burned by Walburga's Black suicide and she couldn't find a way to do it manually.

Mrs Krouch ended Umbridge's inconclusive fumbling. With a decisive movement of her commanding wand, she levitated the device in the air and said, "The Ministry is obliged to share all evidence with the Wizengamot, I'm sure that even you know that, Dolores."

Krouch continued waving her wand in elaborate twisting movements, and Umbridge could only grit her teeth when a long table with names, age, and images of people saved by Val Peverell was projected in thin air. It grew in the huge rotating cloud in the middle of the room, avoiding the dark blue clouds still raining over Val's father. It displayed countless faces for the audience. Many among them were very young as the Prime Minister said.

"What about Mr Snape?" Fudge asked innocently. "If he is indeed alive after that Kiss, he could be locked up as an example. He was a Death Eater after all. And it's not like he will have much of a life now."

"Over my dead body," Val said, quivering from anger. More than ever, she looked like her brother Sirius, ready to jump at Umbridge and Fudge both, and tear at their throats. If only she could transform to a dog instead of a tropical lizard.

"And mine. Severus Snape was no Death Eater. He spied until his last breath against Voldemort and suffered more than anybody else did in the process. I will give my memories proving it to the court," thundered Remus Lupin standing at the entrance door.

"Lupin!?" Snape said in disbelief, raising his greasy head from the floor. It was the very first word he uttered since he dared open his eyes again, uncertain of what he would see, dreaming himself back in the Wizengamot after a certain death. 

He saw a great press of people pouring into the chamber, whose large wooden doors, ruined and corroded, lay open uselessly, almost cast aside, amidst lingering orange fumes. And then the face of the woman he wanted to see most of all was everywhere over his, obstructing his capacity to breathe. He found he had use of his arms, so he drew her closer, drowning gladly. His back hurt tremendously and it was good. It was real.

"Severus," Val whispered, "you're back."

"A most revolutionary healing technique to mend a split soul, I must say; embracing Death, willingly…" her father had the audacity to observe from above. "Most daring. I don't think I would have had the guts to test it on myself."

"You… You…" Val stuttered, "you knew! And you were about to let me die from grief!"

She tried to wrench herself away from him, but Snape knew better than to let her go, not her, not again. There were to be no misunderstandings.

"I didn't know, Val," he said, simply, holding onto her, "I thought that maybe it might work that way after Potter lived where he shouldn't have. But I didn't know. And I thought that my dying, fake or real, would buy you some time…"

"So if you were wrong…" Val said, understanding, petrified, that her loss could have been all too real.

"…you would have had your gift back" Snape said, "and you would be able to help yourself and the others. Either way, it would have been worth it."

"But…" Val said, for there was a thing she still didn't understand. Her dimensions were in place despite that they should not be. Despite that she had given them up. And she still meant it, loving him. Apparently so did he. "But…"

"But what?" Snape asked. As most of his questions, that one also went unanswered. Val was done explaining. Especially to any audience. What she may have to say to him, should better be done in private, after some tests.

"You… you… You…" Val couldn't even reasonably finish her sentence. She buried her face in his black chest, shoulders shaking in tears that would not come. Her eyelids were swollen and drier than a hollow bed of a stream in the desert. Snape's arms enclosed her like wings of a giant bat, his lips thinning in a ghost of a smile when he finally looked up and above Val's head again.

"I will testify in favour of Severus Snape as well," said Nymphadora Tonks, one of the most respected Aurors of her generation, tripping over the first stair leading down.

"As will I," stated Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, and one of the most respected witches of all times.

Snape felt an unusually warm sensation bubbling under his cold skin, when his long time colleague who had so professionally hexed him out of Hogwarts at the start of the battle against Voldemort pronounced those words.

The chatter and the excited noises conquered every corner of the Wizengamot chamber, every crevice of the Ministry, reaching astronomic proportions and propagating themselves through the still open ceiling, where one or another Dementor still shyly tried to get a peek at what was happening on the inside. There was no need for Extendable Ears any longer if anyone wanted to listen.

One by one, those present in the room from the beginning realised that they were welcoming back in their midst not only all the Members of the Wizengamot who ran away from Death, and who were now slowly returning, but also all the sleepers of Hogwarts.

"I'm telling you," a witch in light blue and yellow robes patterned with large moving flowers told one of the dunderheads in Potter's year, _McMillan_ , if Snape was not mistaken. "It was Bellatrix Lestrange. She was helping us out when Death came for us, with one of the Weasley boys. I climbed out of here on a braid maid of her hair… They had this beautiful blue dragon! I've never seen a tame one like that!"

"Mum, it can't be," the boy said, "she died at Hogwarts, I've seen it. One of the few who truly did. Besides, she'd never do such a thing."

"Listen to me, young Ernie," the witch said, entirely unconvinced, "I was in her year except that I was in Hufflepuff. Don't you go on telling me I wouldn't recognise her. We were hexing each other before you were born. It was her."

But no one was interested in Bellatrix Lestrange and her uncertain fate in an atmosphere where witches and wizards cried and hugged their children and grandchildren. The entire Weasley family was sobbing in one of the corners. Despite the overall commotion, it didn't escape a shrewd gaze from one very elated Severus Snape how a very composed and focused Hermione Granger, bushy hair and all, immediately discovered a confused Harry Potter dressed as his godfather, hiding in the front row behind _Black_ himself. Granger first pushed Potter upstairs in the chamber, between vacant rows of Wizengamot seats, and then out of the door, so that no one would see him inside and discover the ruse that Black was not Black. Not all the time, at least.

"You last," the insufferable know-it-all whispered to _Potter_ , "the sugar comes at the end."

Snape was glad for his delightfully awful feelings and thoughts about his former students. His worst fear about the aftereffects of the miraculous Dementing cure, eliminating a stray piece of his maimed soul, if it worked, was that he would entirely lose his normal character disposition and turn soft and sentimental on edges. He would have hated that more than anything.

Despite his continued _dislike_ of Granger, the girl's voice sounded powerful like music, jubilant like victory and inconstant as freedom in Snape's aged ears. And there was a different bush of hair still firmly nested on his chest, making everything that had occurred since he was forced to kill Albus seem worth it.

"I will testify that Severus Snape killed my older brother Albus at his own wish and command. It was an act of mercy, not a crime," said Ariana Dumbledore. 

 _Bright as ever,_ Snape had a moment to think. Ariana had indeed waited for an opportune moment to speak, so as to further deviate the attention of anyone who might have been looking for Harry Potter.

"And who would be your brother, dear?" asked Umbridge, still in control, and blissfully unaware that the tide had irrevocably changed. The middle of the courtroom, normally intended only to isolate the accused, under sharp light and tender care of the Dementors, filled up with students, teachers and volunteers who took part in the final battle against Tom Riddle Junior and his minions.

Eyes twinkling icy cold in stern determination, Ariana retorted, "Dolores, do show me the respect I deserve as your senior. I was born in 1900, that would be at least 12 years before you if my count is correct. My name is Ariana Kendra Hecate Dumbledore, sister to Albus and Aberfoth Dumbledore. I lived in seclusion due to my delicate condition until recently. I am sure that you have all read about my exciting life in the wonderful book published by Miss Skeeter when my poor brother passed away, due to a terrible curse he accidentally contracted from a magical object he studied a year ago. It's a somewhat inaccurate work of art, if I may say, but then again, the great novels always are that way, aren't they? Works of rich fantasy… Still, Miss Skeeter was quite correct on the account of my fragile health…"

"But you… you…" Dolores pointed at Ariana's face before she touched the most prominent wrinkles on her own.

"Good heavens," Ariana said, "I wouldn't want to be impolite but since you insist, I do have to admit that you look quite a bit older, hence I can excuse your mistake in treating me as some child. I am so very sorry that the time has not been so kind to you as it was to me."

Umbridge opened her mouth like a fish out of water, and was unable to close it. No words could exit from her chubby throat.

"It would seem that my magical skills in maintaining my appearance _fresh_ are evidently somewhat more developed than yours, Dolores, my dear," Ariana said with pity and worry in her voice to a profoundly shocked and continuously gaping Umbridge. "I could recommend you a few charms to look younger, maybe a potion…"

"Come, love," Sirius finally said something as well, mirth sparkling in his normally pale eyes. He remained stoned and mute like an overgrown tree after his motorcycle stunt for much longer than normal, only occasionally caressing Alphard's head or Ariana's hair for reassurance that the world was still the same. "I'd love to offer you a ride home, but I'm afraid that I have lost the means to do that. I can only walk you and Alphard there. Of course, only after we accompany my sister and her husband to their home which happens to be near by, right above the Ministry if I heard it correctly at this mockery of a trial. They will need time to recover from the injustice that has been done. I can tell first hand that it's not always the easiest thing."

"And I think that we should also check the family tree for missing relatives when we come home," Sirius added as an afterthought, approaching the man who had urged him to back from doing a very crazy thing, by wanting to stay on his motorbike and fly to see the stars, for what would have been the first and the very last time in his disorientated life. The wizard who cried out to him with the voice of his late great-great-grandfather.

"Thank you, sir," Sirius said. "For calling me back to reason."

"My name is Rufus McMillan," the voice of Phineas Nigellus Black sounded in the Wizengamot again, and a few older necks, of witches and wizards who could have been his students in Hogwarts arched uncomfortably to turn away from it. "I swear to Merlin that I have not started this… transfiguration."

"A son of Vanna Prince McMillan, I reckon," Sirius said.

"That was my mother. How do you know?"

"Never mind," Sirius said. "I guess that you didn't pay good attention to the first part of this trial. You were probably deaf and all, I don't know. Well… My… wife to be and I will invite you for a cup of tea one of these days and explain the meaning of this to you a bit better, as we see it, if you don't mind."

"I'd like that," said the voice of Phineas Black with mischief.

At that, Ariana gave Sirius a brilliant inviting smile and headed to Snape and Val, offering them a hand each to get up. Soon the two couples, and one baby Alphard on Ariana's chest, all walked up the massive stairs carved in stone. And they walked to the door, free, with no one trying to stop them, welcomed by friendly greetings and hugs and not so gentle taps on the back.

Baby Alphard began crying from too much attention, and quite a few of Sirius's friends, including Remus, started growing warts on their faces from his accidental child magic. Until his mother shushed him, enveloping him in a peach-coloured charm of her own which softly lulled him back into easy sleep. Sirius rectified the results of his son's doing with his wand, but the smirk on his face told that he regretted doing so, perhaps considering that the first signs of magical prowess of little Alphard merited a longer life.

Fudge could not believe his eyes when his worst fears have come true. _Ruddy Dumbledores! Having the utmost indecency of living way too long!_ He used the mayhem in the trial chamber to sneak out and disappear and he had never been seen again in Britain. The grapewine of the magical community rumoured he tried to Apparate to Romania, rather then go to Brazil, but no one could tell for sure, and frankly, no one cared.

And that was how Dolores Umbridge was left alone in the front row when her world constructed on flimsy beliefs came crushing down.

The trial was over.

Brunhilda Crouch was fighting with many rolls of thickly written parchment, until she succeeded in diminishing it a bit with a well aimed spell. Exhausted, she placed the small pile on the tribune in front of her. Muggle Prime Minister gave her a helpful hand by taking off his tie and tying a firm knot around the parchment, adding to the bundle the laptop he had brought for the perusal of the magical authorities.

"Thank you, _Prime Minister,_ " Brunhilda said, remembering the correct title.

"Not at all," the Muggle replied with a friendly grin. "I'm glad I could be of assistance. I should be going now. It is not done to be late for the audience with the Queen. We will soon send out proper invitations for the ceremony of awarding the Order of Merit to Miss Black. I will be certaub to include you."

Brunhilda Crouch nodded, slightly absent from the conversation. She was not a young witch any more.

 _It will take months to question properly all the witnesses of this,_ she thought, shaking her head, relieved that for that day at least, the proceedings were over.

Because if there was any doubt that could be cast on the survivors of Hogwarts as insane and untrustworthy, even Umbridge, in her endless conviction in her own superiority and mission to lead others, was able to tell that no one, old or young, would believe her this time against the word of one single wizard.

The great ruined door of the Wizengamot chamber crumbled further down than any time before in the known magical history for the purpose of welcoming the saviour of the wizarding world.

Dolores Jane Umbridge had a grace to faint when a _laughing_ and _carelessly, offensively_ _good looking_ Sirius Black gently nudged forward the Boy Who Destroyed Voldemort, and pointed at him with both arms, almost crying from unspeakable joy.

The one and only Harry Potter.


	33. Lyra's Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the music plays

A giant blue paw with large claw and glimmering scales protruded shyly behind the back wall of the former shop and pub of the Peverell family, which returned to its natural condition of a large irregularly built wizarding house that had flown to London from Brazil only two years ago. The upper floors were larger than the ground floor, and the roof boosted a broad range of contrasting colours, from bright green to golden orange.

The street was empty of witches and wizards. Only an innocent Muggle passer-by occasionally tossed a surprised look at the structure, and a couple of tourists stopped to take a photo of it.

Charlie Weasley gave up on trying to hide Betty, the dragon; or the unusual house. He looked at the woman in black nervously walking around. They were behind the house in a small city garden, where the Peverells must have planted beans that were just about to open in flower. Bellatrix examined the bean flower buds as if they were much more interesting than her companion.

"Perhaps we should go inside now," Charlie suggested, "before someone finds you. You are not well and you don't even want to admit what you did."

"I haven't done a thing," Bellatrix said arrogantly, continuing to stare at the luxurious vegetable growth.

"Right," Charlie muttered, "absorbing the Cruciatus curse and Merlin knows what other curses you used on the Longbottom back into yourself qualifies as a huge nothing in my book."

"What is it to you?" she _finally_ defied him, looking pointedly in his direction.

She was normally several inches taller than Charlie, but her shoulders were now sunken and all her demeanour diminished.

Charlie sighed and stretched out a sunburnt hand, full of old scars from handling dragons. "Come on," he said, "I heard a thing about the stubbornness of the Blacks, but yours is legendary."

"Not a Black," she waved her head, shaking the black curls restlessly with it. "I'm a Lestrange in case you didn't follow pure blood marriages in your blood traitor family."

"Do you care about that now?"

"About what?"

"The blood traitor family thing."

Bellatrix forgot she was able to look at him and focused on the beans again.

"Bella," he called out to her, hoping to reach her wherever her mind had gone. "Please, come in. There's something I have to show you."

"What did you call me?" she asked timidly back.

"The way I've been calling you in my dreams ever since I've met you when this house was still a bar," Charlie responded with a solemn declaration of his own.

She looked at him with suspicion, and Charlie used her moment of hesitation to open the back door and enter, hoping she'd follow. A huge smile beamed on his face when he heard soft steps behind his back, and the creaking of the old wooden door, closing.

"I'm not safe to be around," she said, making an effort to explain herself.

"If I wanted safe, I wouldn't have been working with dragons," Charlie replied readily.

"What I mean, I am a bit deranged, truly, after Azkaban and all. Perhaps even from before."

Charlie could see on her face that she was making an effort, unused to asking for forgiveness, never admitting she was sorry. Or so Charlie supposed.

"I'm not so good at words," he said, "never have been, I had difficulties producing all the bloody essays in Hogwarts and Snape thought of me as particularly dumb."

He made an assured step forward towards her, just as when he would approach a particularly dangerous bloodthirsty dragon in the reserve he worked in. "Come with me to Romania", he said, "no one will look for you there. We can return when they establish how the Longbottoms were cured, and your role in it."

She looked him in the eyes, her own getting wide like pools of crystal clear water or a stretch of pale blue sky. "But…" she tried to say.

Charlie kissed her irreverently, hoping to convey what he couldn't say, painfully aware that he would nevertheless have to tell her. After all, he messed up with speaking after their… well… after a very memorable encounter on Betty's former bedding of straw.

"I don't give a damn," he told her hair, blushing red, "about your past."

It was a lot but she needed him to say more. "But you said we couldn't. Because you'd always know who I was and what I did."

"I was an idiot," he said, and then, hoping it would be enough. "I almost lost you because I was stupid. I'll never do that again. It would kill me faster then you ever could with a curse."

She pushed him away until he fell on his back, her old strength back only for a second. Towering over him, she grabbed his face and said with an arrogant smirk he learned to adore: "I'd love to continue where we were the last time."

"But I'm afraid it will have to wait," she stuttered, losing all colour from her face. And she was already so pale by nature.

Bellatrix Lestrange born Black collapsed on her lover when the house of the Peverells began to transform. Charlie soon found they were again in Betty's bed, in her stable behind the pub. Taking Bella in his arms again, he carried her to the bar area and dared open the front door.

"Hello," he said and was greeted by a dishevelled Val Peverell, beaming from joy.

"Oh, there you are!" she said, "better go to the other back room where there is a proper bed. I think it's best that the two of you hide during concert. She looks like she could use some time to recover."

Charlie was so happy to hear Val's friendly voice that not even the dark look thrown at him by Snape, who stood by her side, could spoil its effect. He obeyed and carried his treasure where she could have her time, and get better.

Xxxxxx

The ghost of Ignotus Peverell, and a dark blue cloud representing his dead brothers, Cadmus and Antioch, followed Ariana, Alphard and Sirius back to Grimmauld Place 12.

"Are those really your brothers?" Sirius asked, trying to make sense of many confused things Harry managed to tell him in a hurry about what had all happened in the Wizengamot when Death was in charge.

"Yes, but I refuse to see them. And then they don't exist. You should do the same," the ghost said stubbornly.

"It is not my place to lecture you," Sirius said, "but I also had an incomplete opinion of many of my relatives. I'm not saying that most of them are any better than what I thought. But at least there was a reason behind some of the things I hated or still hate about them. Maybe you should acknowledge the existence of your brothers to come to terms with them. With everything that they are."

"Sirius," Ariana observed, "don't his brothers remind you of the substance that the Veil the Death is really made of?"

Alphard squeaked in agreement on his mother's chest, and Sirius scratched his head in a dog-like fashion. "The thoughts of angels," he said.

"Indeed," peeped an odd, ancient voice from the blue cloud.

"Thank you for recognising our existence, young Sirius," an even quainter voice squeaked.

"Serving Death is tiring, in the long run-" the first voice said. "-We became guardians," the second voice added in incessant sequence that continued in a perfect cacophony. "We became-" "-what the Muggles call-" "-angels. And maybe they're not-" "-wrong-"

"Shut up, " Sirius bellowed, making Alphard bleat in fear. "You were helping Death-"

"-we just-" "-wanted to save our brother-" "-thought he'd be in peace-" "-if he broke the cycle of Death-" "-and accepted to die-" "-in fear- "-in fear-" "-in fear-" "as we did-" "-we didn't know-" "-didn't know-" "-didn't now-" "-didn't know-".

"You didn't know what exactly?" Ariana asked, pressing her hand gently onto Sirius's mouth in order to halt another growl of impetuous rage, unavoidable as the rising and the setting of the sun.

"-that she loved him-" "-she loved-" "-loved him-" "-she saved him-" "-where we could not-" "-we were wrong-" "-wrong-" "-wrong-" "-wrong-"

"Who saved him?" Ariana wanted both Sirius and the ghost to hear who it was again. Her relatively short experience of freedom taught her that men were sometimes playing deaf and needed to listen to certain truths many times lest they forget them, or simply ignore them.

The chatter of voices continued in the summer breeze.

"Walburga-" "-Walburga-" "-Walburga-" "-she loved him-" "-he is-" "-free-" "-free-" "-free-"

The voices chattered about the defeat of Death, clamorously, vigorously, ugly and unstoppable.

"The only witch in my fourteen lives who has ever loved me," Peverell finally admitted over the deafening noise.

"The witch who was not capable of feeling anything for me, an unwanted child, but she still found it in her heart to leave me her motherly protection," Sirius admitted, tugging at his T-shirt with the title _Jump_ on his back. "I thought it was a present from some girl who fancied me in Hogwarts, but was too shy to give it in person. It smelled of charms and of some perfume I'd never associate with my mother. Something _sweet_ in essence, not stern as she always was. Not to mention that it's a Muggle thing. And the letters come from a  Muggle song, I think..."

"Walburga was always good in hiding," the ghost observed, "we had years of practice in that."

"It didn't end very well," Ariana said.

"You could say so," Ignotus replied, "or you could say that it did. We were happy. Knowing that it was not a lie somehow brings it all back. It makes you forget the ugly things inbetween.

"-she died for you-" "-died for you-" "-died for you-"

"Mum was nothing but thorough," Sirius said as a final verdict, with the tiniest portion of respect.

"-cheated on Death-" "-cheated on Death-" "-cheated on Death-"

The sun was shining. The ghost, the wizard, the witch and the magical child became so fed up with the banter of the dark blue voices that they wished them out of their existence, wished them to withdraw to another Veil of Death or any such place where the unsuccessful angels go to cry for their losses.

When they were alone under the clear blue sky, Ignotus Peverell sat on the ground and told them, between cheerful and sad, "I'll give a concert tonight. I intend it to be my last one before I retire. For my daughter. And for you. For anyone who wishes to come."

"We'll be there, mate," Sirius said casually.

With that the ghost left the couple to walk with their child in the sun, taking all the side streets Sirius could think of, not wishing to arrive home very soon. The day was entirely too beautiful to be wasted behind the still mouldy walls of Grimmauld Place 12. The smog tasted of roses in bloom, and of new beginnings.

"You still don't believe it, do you?" Ariana asked.

"In what?"

"That we are real."

"No," Sirius said, "but that doesn't mean that we are not."

xxxxxx

The evening after the end of the most confusing and possibly most famous trial in the history of the magical world, Val and Ignotus Peverell gave a concert for everyone who had been either in the Wizengamot that day, or asleep in Hogwarts. Many more guests came uninvited from many different places in Britain, even some distant cousins from abroad.

The announcement was spread over the Floo Network as a deadly disease. The special evening edition of the _Quibbler_ and the _Daily Prophet_ , called the _Nightly Prophet_ for the occasion, was sold out in a matter of seconds.

Severus Snape and Val lurked from behind the stage at the gathering crowd. The inside of the pub slowly grew until it reached the size of a Quidditch field under the enchanted, dark blue ceiling, courtesy of the beings Sirius called angels.

"So will you tell me now how this transformation is possible?" Snape asked his wife, irritated because she was still hiding something from him, after everything they had been through.

"You're supposed to be smart," she teased him. "Can't you figure it out?"

"I'm alive," he stated, tempted to pinch his nose to check that fact. "And I can't very well say why but you still appear to love me. So you can't be dimension shifting."

"Perhaps you don't love _me_?" she mocked him further and was rewarded by a sneaking of arms under her T-shirt and an embrace so thorough that all talk stopped for a while.

"It's not me," she said bashfully when they were quite done, choosing a fresh T-shirt. The concert required that she be covered, in the least.

The look on Severus's face showed clearly that he didn't understand.

"It is as my father said. Remember, he sacrificed his gift and then I was born," she said hoping to make him understand.

It didn't work. The black gaze remained as uninformed as before.

Not having any other choice Val took his hands and pressed them on her still flat belly, hoping that the bright yellow T-shirt she put on would remain clean, wondering if he would finally guess or if she'd have to spell it out for him.

The touch of his hands turned from uncertain to gentle, from gentle to devote.

"It can't be," he stuttered.

"Why not?" she said, glad that he was getting on the right track. "We are not that old."

"Good heavens," Snape said, "I hope the child will have a minimum of intelligence."

"Or he or she will regret having me as a father," he added poisonously, making Val laugh. In response to Snape's comment, the space of the pub significantly enlarged its size one more time. Unprovoked. Defiant.

"Well," Val pointed at the phenomenon.

Snape took Val in his arms. "Dad will love him," he whispered, hoping that nobody could hear him.

"Or her," Val observed playfully, straightening her T-shirt and escaping his embrace.

It was time to play.

The pub was brimming with guests.

Betty openly and visibly served as a buttress; the blue dragon carried the back of the house where the stage was built on her enormous back, as she did for crossing the ocean when the Peverells travelled from Brazil to London.

Old friends and enemies were all there, united if only for a day in celebration. The witches and wizards mixed with unsuspecting Muggles who were happy to discover that their favourite place to go out was back again, after missing for several days.

Snape went to the bar, leaving Val some space to concentrate before her performance. Unburdened for a change, he didn't even hate it that much when he ended up forced to amuse Umbridge during the most memorable stage appearance of the Peverells he had ever witnessed. Brian, the Muggle bartender, helped him, serving Umbridge the best quality Firewhisky. After the second bottle, Umbridge was vividly counselling Severus about the benefits of adopting a law giving more rights to magical creatures, starting with werewolves and centaurs. Snape for his part suggested that Dementors should be shipped to Antarctica to form a Dementor colony, while some of them could guard Gringgots rather than Azkaban, now that the Goblins have lost their only dragon.

xxxxxxxxxxx

 _Really, those Ministry people should live up to their responsibility from time to time_ , Sirius thought about his new cousin Rufus McMillan, who was still trying to come to terms with his improved looks in the autumn of his life, and with the significant part of the fortune of the Blacks he would be inheriting. Sirius unceremoniously shoved him into the pub before the concert, and let him entertain the Muggle Prime Minister, who was again wearing wizarding robes upside down, trying to honour the occasion. _New, purple, and tasteless, definitely not a product of Madame Malkin_ , thought Sirius.

Harry was hiding in the corner with his friends, Ginny, Ron and Hermione. He was separated from the rest of the crowd by the rest of the rejoicing Weasley family, the Lovegoods, Neville Longbottom with his grandmother, and two skeletal persons that could only be Neville's parents, Frank and Alice, who had miraculously woken from their vegetative state at the same time when Hogwarts did. Fortunately for Harry, the confusion, the noise and the giddiness of guests was such that everybody minded their own business for once. All wizards and witches, friend or foe, were left to celebrate in peace.

 _Tomorrow it will be all the same_ , Sirius was certain, _all the differences will come up_. The small grudges will grow in size and hide all the good very deep down in most people. But on a day like this day, everybody was reminded that the good was still there. Even if it couldn't always be seen.

With something akin to hope, he kept on sitting in the corner, brooding, wondering why Ariana had left him on a special night like this. All his doubts and fears barked at the non-existent moon in his large chest. She told him she'd meet him in the pub when she found someone to babysit Alphard, but she was not there. The upcoming trip to Brazil made him even more uneasy with the fear of facing his brother Regulus after all the years, ashamed for not trusting him when he should have done so. Regulus was the first unknown hero of the fight against Voldemort, and he would have died in it, if their mother's lover (Sirius still felt slightly sick at the idea) had not come to his rescue and with a dragon, no less.

His sister, Val, nudged Sirius when she passed by after the first part of the concert, as if she could read his mind. "Don't worry. Reg adores you. He was heartbroken when we thought you joined Voldemort."

"Learning Legilimency from Snivellus, are you? Did you owl him that we would be coming?"

"I'm a natural, brother. As a former dimension shifter I mean. And no, to your other question, I didn't owl Reg," Val said. "We Blacks adore family surprises, don't you think? Your face was priceless according to Harry when you eavesdropped on the conversation of our mother with my father…"

"So was yours when I read your full name in front of the entire Wizengamot, Lyra," Sirius smirked.

"MY NAME IS VAL!" she yelled, but the merry sound of glasses raised in toasts, and the conversations which were louder than usual, spurred by Firewhisky, swallowed her outburst.

"See what I meant?" Sirius said. "We should owl Regulus. I don't want him to succumb to dragon pox from the sheer joy of seeing me."

Val sauntered towards Snivellus, pretending to be offended by Sirius. She hugged the old bat tightly, pushing Umbridge off her bar chair, causing the disgrace of a witch to sprawl on the floor as an extravagantly fluffy, pink carpet.

"Are they ready back there?" she asked her husband under the voice. "Is it time for one more surprise for my dear brother?"

Severus just grinned like an idiot and squeezed Val with his long pale arms as if he would never let her go. He still had trouble speaking for prolonged time after his gorge injury. Sirius and Harry found this to be a large improvement over his usual condition of shooting awful remarks at innocent witches and wizards; war hero or not.

Sirius had his ears up, despite that he would have heard them even without his heightened sense of hearing, more typical of a dog than of a human being.

"I'm listening to the two of you," said Sirius. "And I'm so gifted in the noble art of Divination that my inner eye tells me that my woman is missing and obviously up to something."

"Let's have a look," Val beaconed him to follow, and Severus fell behind them in silence.

Sirius had an idea of who he might see in the back room of " _Lyra's_ " and he braced himself mentally not to show any inappropriate reaction, such as casting an Unforgivable Curse first and speaking next. For the first time he had a very good idea about how Phineas Nigellus must have felt when Sirius broke into his refuge, up on the dusty attic of Grimmauld Place 12, back in 1925.

He found Ariana seated on the edge of the four poster bed with high pillows. On top lay an emaciated female figure clad in black, extremely pale and sick looking. Only a tiny spark in her heavy-lidded eyes gave away that the breath of life had not completely left her. _Yet,_ Sirius thought evilly.

"Bellatrix," Sirius addressed her curtly, holding an iron grip on his emotions. He was certain Ariana had been joking about this whole godmother issue for little Alphard.

"Cousin," she muttered weakly, like a dry leaf fallen to the ground centuries ago, withered and stepped on for far too long. "Long time, no see."

"Indeed," Sirius muttered, suddenly emptied of hatred. Bellatrix, his would-be killer, was utterly ruined. Only one action could have caused it to this extent. It was not a miracle that woke up Frank and Alice. It was Bella.

Charlie Weasley stumbled into the room holding a single blue rose, a unique one of its kind, before he blushed like a school-boy at the sight of the gathering. Mustering all his courage, he continued in a dignified pace towards the object of his visit and handed her the flower. A flutter of strange emotion crossed Bella's once handsome features. Her eyes of a very old woman stared more resolutely back at Sirius, among wrinkles and ruined skin, showing a glint of merciless character she certainly still possessed.

"May I see Alphard Phineas once again?" Bella inquired calmly. Her voice dwindled and disappeared.

Dreary silence descended to the room. All eyes were on Sirius, expecting an attack of rage, all except Ariana's. His woman's bright blue eyes glimmered in the darkness with confidence that all would be well this time. No one else shared this conviction, knowing the story of Sirius and Bella.

"You lovely Dumbledores…" muttered Sirius "You always trust where you should _not_."

"I meant to say that I'd like to see your son before you ship me back to Azkaban," Bella completed her thought, absently twiddling with the blue flower in her hands.

"Shut up, Bella" Sirius said with finality, and stood up tall, preparing to leave the room.

At the door he turned and finished his own thought before leaving. "You know me better than that."

"Where are you going, Sirius?" said Ariana.

"I'll listen to some more music and have a drink with Harry, if you don't mind. We're all free now. I assume you will be on your way soon."

"Where to?" said Ariana.

"Black, you really are an idiot," Snape said with unwavering conviction.

"I don't know, Godric's Hollow, Hog's Head, Percival's house above the sea, or wherever you want to stay. I presume you already took Alphard away from me while you were gone," Sirius found himself unable _not_ to spill out the most horrible things that crossed his mind while he was waiting for her in vain.

"I took some liking to Grimmauld Place in the last few months. Though I dare say that the place does need some refurbishment..." Ariana said softly.

Sirius's chest swelled with uncanny sadness for not being there for Ariana when Alphard was born. It would never cease to anger him that Bella was there of all imaginable witches and wizards, and he was not.

"- But it's not such a bad place and I thought I could stay, unless you don't want me to, of course, then at least I have to pick up Alphard from Kreacher first, he is baby sitting him now over there, and..."

Sirius turned back on his heels, took Ariana's hand and brought it to his mouth, momentarily forgetting his despair.

"Stay. Please," he finally dared say with a pleading look.

Ariana took him under his arm and start pushing him towards the door, "Let's have that drink together."

"Wait," Val stopped them. "I need to add how I feel truly proud that we are again keeping a secret from the wizarding world..." she winked to both Severus and Sirius, and then pointed to Bella and Charlie. "One can never reveal _all_ the secrets. We have to keep this one inside our family."

"I'm afraid you missed on some of the developments..." Severus said sarcastically to a very confused Bellatrix, who was trying to understand Val's logic in communication, "Dear aunt Walburga is Val's mother."

"I wished to kill  _Val_ as well," Bellatrix admitted, remembering her past.

"Now, now," Sirius said spontaneously. "You killed me, right? See, it's not a big deal anymore."

And when he said it, it was true. The past was not gone, but it hurt less. And Ariana was hugging him from the back now. It was unbelievably good.

"Get yourself together, Bella," Sirius said, as he dragged Ariana back towards the door of the pub, suddenly daydreaming about all the empty broom cupboards in Hogwarts, and about his lonely room in Grimmauld Place, the only one decorated in red and gold. He hoped Ariana would not mind the posters of girls and motorcycles too much.

Loudly, he still thought of saying to his cousin, not turning back to look at her any longer, "I want my son to have a beautiful godmother."

Ariana gripped Sirius fiercely and whispered so that no one else could hear them, "And I want to be your lover. Without fear or shame. In bright daylight or under the stars."

"So do I," Sirius breathed back, "Merlin help me, so do I!"

"Father!" Val screamed.

Through the half open door, on the stage, amongst the brightly coloured fumes being sprayed from the floor in order to mark the end of show, the transparent silhouette of a short chubby man paled and diminished until he was no more.

Ignotus Peverell finished playing the last number of his worldly existence, and decided to pass to the other side, of his own free will, undefeated by Death.

"Father!" Val was sobbing and running to the stage, staggering over the trumpet where the player used to be. Her grief went unnoticed in general applause and drunkenness. The public believed they were witnessing just another special effect, a stage trick, and nothing more. "He left..." she cried. "He's gone over," she cried quietly.

Sirius suspected he would not find an empty portrait of their mother upon his return to Grimmauld Place either. After almost 40 years, the pair of old lovers opted to unite in death when they could not do it again in life.

Neither Sirius or Ariana knew how to comfort Val. They carefully stepped into the pub, closing the door to the backstage room for the purpose of hiding Charlie and Bella from the prying eyes of today's friends and tomorrow's enemies.

While they were both hesitant to approach the dais and interfere with Val's grief, Severus Snape walked calmly out of the back room where he was forgotten and closed the door behind him again. He reached the stage in a few expert long strides, of a man at home. Sirius noticed for the first time that instead of his usual black robes Snivellus wore a black hooded T-shirt and a pair of baggy black jeans. His greasy hair was _tied_ in a rather neat pony tail. On his feet he wore the ugliest pair of black sport shoes Sirius had ever seen.

"I believe it's my turn to learn how to play this," Snape said, gently taking the trumpet from Val's trembling arms. "We can better start now, shall we, love?"

Harry Potter was seen beaming in the far corner, entirely too happy to notice the oddity of the tune that followed, as were many other guests. Yet all felt drawn to the beauty and the sorrow it contained, and the party went on for long after dawn.

The old Muggle bartender Brian was happy to give an interview for a Muggle rock magazine on the next day, saying that a new musical legend of London was born, a two persons band.

Called the _Dementor's Kiss_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to anyone who left a kudos, a comment, and/or read this far. Only an Epilogue to follow


	34. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where children grow

**Epilogue**

Alphard cursed silently because the pale pink concoction he painstakingly prepared, stirred counter-clockwise and left to simmer for hours, manifestly did not work.

It was even worse than that, the cauldron started to fume suspiciously in thick puffs of ugly pink and green. Uglier than the voice of the old fat witch Mum didn't like, the one who made frequent appearances on Wizarding Wireless as a chef of the prisoners' kitchen in Azkaban. Azkaban had become a different place than it was when his Dad was imprisoned there for 12 years. It was clean and warm in winter, guarded by magically enhanced bars and walls (almost) impossible to escape from. The prisoners had to do useful work for the wizarding community, such as gardening of more dangerous magical plants, or helping in the wand production. The idea for the revolutionary reform came from someone called the Muggle Prime Minister, long time ago, right after Alphard was born. It was rumoured among pure-bloods that the new regime made the greedier among wizards turn to thievery only to get a vacation free of charge. The Dementors, who still haunted his father's dreams from time to time, founded their own colony at the farthest north of Scotland. They had not been seen bothering anyone for almost 12 years.

The cauldron cracked. And there was no one he could ask for help this time. The portrait of his name sake, great-great-great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus, was taken for restoration works to the Rita Skeeter's famous _Atelier for Fixing the Magical Smears and Old Dirty Canvases_ in Diagon Alley, after Alphard's latest experiment with potions resulted in a blast damaging the frame and burning off one of the old Phineas's legs. The painted victim took it stoically and concluded that Alphard was a Black through and through, in the end. As if that was a good thing. Alphard's blue eyes, brighter than the summer sky, twinkled wildly when he thought that maybe Uncle Severus was right and all first years in Hogwarts were dunderheads when it came to potions. It was only good that he didn't teach the subject any more, busy as he was with playing his trumpet in Muggle world, and doing some other intelligent stuff concerning potions and healing with Aunt Val. Alphard didn't think he would survive those lessons, judging by how Uncle Harry had described them, the famous musician-wizard's nephew or not. Uncle Snive...Severus, of course, wore his legendary greasy hair tied since the end of the war against Voldemort, but it was still best to get out of his way when he would get mean for no reason. Nonetheless, Alphard found Snape's playing tremendously fascinating. It was the only moment when you could discern the wildly emotional nature of his beloved uncle, who was otherwise a true pain in the ass.

When father took Alphard to Rita Skeeter's with the damaged portrait, mother and father gossiped about why a once famous reporter of the _Daily Prophet_ left her profession and turned to the conservation and restoration of magical paintings. Mother recalled, laughing the way it made her particularly beautiful, how the _Quibbler_ issued an article about the dangerous tropical lizard poisoning Miss Skeeter had allegedly suffered, shortly after publishing her sensational second by second detailed recollections with real time magical footage of how a Dementor kissed Uncle Snape in the Wizengamot 12 years ago, breaking Aunt Val's heart. Father grinned like crazy, and _snogged_ mother the way it always made her blush. Miss Skeeter's hands shook, and almost, almost reached for the magical quill, which jumped merrily above the paint infested counter.

Now, the rattling sound on the wooden stairs leading to the attic of the Grimmauld Place 12 was more than welcome.

"What took you so long?" Alphard grumbled, stirring further the unsuccessful mixture with rekindled hope, not even turning around to greet his visitors. He knew who they were.

"Will you blow up your own leg this time, cousin?" cousin Eileen asked with venom. "Do you want a hand with that?"

"Thanks a lot!," Alphard said enthusiastically, ignoring Eileen's attitude, letting her have the cauldron immediately. She was all right when one got to know here, and she was lucky to inherit only her father's character and natural brightness, but neither his nose nor his hair. Her skin, on the other hand, was extremely pale, much more so than any of the other Black descendants, and her hand wildly curly, changing colours with the light. Ignotus, her twin, was as open hearted as she was nasty despite that his hooked nose and sharp black eyes would make other children cringe before they would realize that his dangerous attitude was only a big joke. The real joke was that he had to cut his curls weekly if he didn't want to look like a cave wizard, or a little girl.

Eileen fixed the potion in no time, obviously.

"Mother and father are going to Edinburgh," Ignotus said, "they'll give a concert there tonight. They dropped us hear thinking Uncle Sirius and Aunt Ariana were at home."

"Sorry, mate," Alphard said, "mother is pregnant again, imagine, in _her_ age. It's appalling, really. And with _our_ twins being only five and a complete pest. One would expect more investment from Aunt Val to make her use some birth control for witches. My parents went to see some healer because mom doesn't feel all that well."

"I guess it's only good that our parents didn't bother to stay and check it all out," Ignotus said, smearing the hideous green coloured mixture Eileen had masterfully finished over the handle bars of Alphard's first two wheel bicycle. Sirius bought him the bike when he was 7; it was now stretched to maximum height of the seat and the steering wheel, because Alphard had grown like a young tree since that time. "D'you still reckon this will work?" Iggy mumbled.

"Of course it will," Alphard said, when a smell of burning spread in the attic, and the pink layer of dust at the bottom of the abandoned cauldron changed colour to ominous red.

"Oops," Ignotus said and added a fast warning "-don't do that, mother told us we should never, Eileen, stop it!"

In a second the cauldron was gone and Eileen fainted in Alphard's arms. "What now?" Alphard said, somewhat afraid for the first time since he started a new experiment. His raven black hair almost stood upright when he heard the crack of apparition in front of the house entrance, followed by the gentle pressing of the door handle, in a shape of a golden winged griffin hugging the old, withered, copper green snake. "Oh no, they are back home!"

He could only imagine what his mother would do when she found Eileen fainted from attempting a too strong Dimension Shift, or when the bloody cauldron finally appeared and exploded, taking the better part of the attic with them. When mother got, well, mad, she demolished entire rooms in the house as if an earthquake or a tornado had passed, not needing a wand. Father comforted her tenderly every time it happened, even when she nearly killed him in some kind of _lovers'_ fight. After the outbursts, she always sobbed in his arms. Alphard hated them and envied them at the same time for the kind of love they shared. Sparkling and alive. And he always paid good attention to do his magic only with the wand, since he got one a year ago, not particularly wanting to know if he inherited or not his mother's capacity for total destruction.

At any rate, there must have been a reason why Alphard was sorted in Ravenclaw, the first perfectly normal member in a completely extraordinary family. He expected to make friends for life in Hogwarts, like his father did, but he only met insipid boys and girls. After a year, his best friend was still cousin Teddy, of the same age, but lucky to be sorted into a much more exciting Gryffindor. Alphard sometimes thought that even Slytherin would be much better, despite that he disliked how the arrogance, own or inherited, of some of the members of that house obscured everything, including the normal human propensity to reason. Well, what was normal depended on who was talking. Maybe Alphard was abnormal with his appetite to devour books and scrolls about almost any topic, from wizard to Muggle. His parents both ensured him they loved reading, but the explanation did not sit well with their son. It was widely known that his parents were remarkable and _cool_ wizards. And Alphard was only an ordinary, overgrown, dull boy who couldn't even benefit from the classy look of the Blacks. A pair of moon-shaped glasses adorned his nose, uglier than what Uncle Harry used, hiding his aristocratic features. And Harry's glasses were already awful to start with.

Ignotus fumbled nervously in his pocket until he found a small vial. "There," he said, "a salve against dragon burns. Father told me it should quench most fires, except Fiendfyre, and I don't think you are _talented_ enough, cousin, to start something like that with you _amateur_ work."

 _Yes,_ Alphard thought, _sometimes you can see Iggy is also Uncle Snape's son._

"Take it and pour it over fast when you see the damn thing back!" Iggy commanded, good-natured again.

Alphard lay Eileen aside on the floor, as carefully as a careless boy of almost 12 was able to. He took the magical cream from his cousin, caught it gingerly in his left hand, and concentrated as hard as he could to the place where the cauldron should have been. Ignotus closed his eyes and drew a black ebony wand he was not supposed to have, since technically he would only start his schooling in Hogwarts in the next two weeks. "Dimensio," he muttered and a glowing red metal recipient did not show where Alphard was waiting for it, but high up in the air above their heads. Alphard climbed on a chair as fast as on the occasions when his father taught him to run away; if mother got upset and things started moving. Aiming well, Sirius's and Ariana's son smashed a vial of salve into the burning mass of melted metal in the air.

The red ball of heat flying in the air turned into pink, into brown, and then it faded and it fell, the old cauldron appearing _normal_ on the ancient wooden floor. The bicycle handle bars shone in bright green, as Phineas told him they should.

Alphard let out a sigh of relief. "Thank Merlin," he said. "It worked! Look!"

Ignotus didn't look, trying hard to revive Eileen, whom Alphard had almost forgotten in contemplation of the success of his many months of hard work. Instantly, he was ashamed of it. _I am an arrogant moron,_ he thought, just like Uncle Severus sometimes calls my father. Alphard sat on the floor next to the twins, not having the vaguest idea of how to help Eileen. She was breathing, so that must have been good at least.

The door of the attic open with a slam and a girlish voice called petulantly. "Cousins! Is there no one to welcome a guest from Romania?!"

"You Apparated!" Alphard turned to the newcomer in anger. "Even _your_ mother told you you should not! You are not even seven yet, Cassiopeia!"

"Mother has done worse things than that when _she_ was seven, I'm sure," said the beautiful girl child, with innocent looking orange curls flowing down her perfectly arranged light green summer dress. Her peeping words smelled of mischief and reminded Alphard of the summer holiday when they made illegal pumpkin juice together.

Alphard remembered he was a son of wizards, so the Ministry would not be able to detect illegal underage magic in his house, filled up with more spells than anyone would ever be able to understand. The second-hand realisation struck him as well.

"You came by yourself," he stated

"Of course!" Cassiopeia said, "I'm almost seven, not a three year old baby. We live only two streets away when we visit London. I told father I would walk and he believed me. Mother didn't believe me, but that's why she loves father, she always says. Because he trusts her even when he should not. Mother went to her sister Andromeda for a cup of tea. We will only stay for two days. One of father's dragons is about to hatch in Romania, and Mum never likes staying in London for two long. She says that the place gives her creeps. And her process is still not over, so if she is found around here, they could send her to Azkaban."

"It's not such a bad place, the worst thing that could happen to her there is that she gets fat," Iggy commented.

"Mum is not one for being locked up," Cassiopeia said. "She says she'd rather die. I cannot understand why someone would die because they didn't want to lose their good figure if that's the only danger in that place..."

"Well," Alphard said to change the topic, remembering his father's nightmares, more than certain that his godmother had her own, "it's still two weeks until the school year starts, and our mother wants to send me and my twin brothers to spend a weekend with my godmother in Romania..."

"That would be great!" Cassiopeia exclaimed.

"We can't come, I'm afraid," Eileen said, lucky to come to her senses on her own, looking all dizzy and as if she was about to puke. Alphard helpfully lifted a cauldron and put it in front of her mouth.

"Thanks, Al," she said flatly, appearing more indifferent than she truly was, before she emptied the most recent contents of her stomach neatly into it. "Mother says this will get better when we learn how to control this malediction she calls a gift."

"You are not coming!" Cassiopeia was disappointed.

"Uncle Regulus is getting engaged in Brazil," Ignotus explained, "mother wants to go there, and to see Norma as well. We are going with her, and so does Uncle Sirius. Aunt Ariana is too sick to travel, I hear."

"Tell me about it," Alphard added with disgust at the thought of the new baby, hearing at the same time the prominent noise of the five year old Black twins, Arneb and Asterion, from the floor below, mixed with helpless cries of old Kreacher who tried to control some nasty game they were playing.

"But we will then all go to Brazil for the wedding, during Yule holidays," Ignotus told Cassiopeia. "Seriously, I wonder if Uncle Regulus's latest girlfriend knows what she is getting into with _this_ family."

"Will Teddy Lupin also go to the wedding?" the little red hair asked. "Aunt Nymphadora is Uncle Regulus's niece twice removed as well. We are all family."

"Possibly," Eileen said. "Probably," Ignotus repeated, and Alphard's head started to hurt because when they did that, they became indistinguishable one from another as only twins could be.

"Cassiopeia," Alphard scolded his youngest cousin in an almost teacher like voice. "Teddy _doesn't_ like you. Not that way. You are a little girl. You are more lovely than even my godmother, who is still one of the best looking and best dressed witches alive. You have to grow up some and wait. Don't read crappy romance novels when your mother doesn't see you. It's almost better that you read the dark magic scrolls she's hiding from Uncle Charlie if you want to keep up your reading skills. My mother says that love can be the most destructive force that there is. But only if we let it."

Alphard regretted having spoken because Cassiopeia gave him a look which clearly indicated that he was also very high on her list of boys she adored, maybe right after Teddy. "Erm..." he said, _blushing_ , diverting the attention to his bike, "let's see if this thing can fly!"

"What do we do?" Ignotus said, all business again, and easy smiles. "What can we do?" Eileen mirrored his phrase. "Can I ride it?" Cassiopeia asked with healthy curiosity, outweighing her silly little girl fantasies.

"You all can," Alphard said. "But after I give it a first try. I wouldn't want to hurt any of you if this doesn't work properly... You could all just push me a bit in the direction of that chimney opening..."

The pedals were worn and used but they felt good under his feet, which were growing on a daily basis and slowly gaining the size of his father's. Alphard pedalled forward, both hands firmly on the steering wheel. They hurt a bit, but he paid them no attention. His cousins pushed the back wheel, fighting about who would be the first one in the row. Cassiopeia prevailed despite being the smallest, and her surreptitious smile at her victory could have melted anyone's heart. Alphard remembered that marriage among cousins _was_ common in the Black family, albeit it increased the factor of madness...

Chasing the uncomfortable thought away, because babies and girls were clearly the most horrendous things in existence, he focused on a distant star he frequently saw in his dreams. He hoped, and prayed, and hoped again that this was going to work. His father had a flying motorcycle hidden in the garden shed, but he, Alphard Phineas Black, was going to have a bike able to travel into the outer space... To the far corner of their galaxy, and farther than that if he could.

He thought he could hear the turning of the stars, and with an incredulous smile on his thin lips he was gone.

"Where is he?" Cassiopeia asked when the bicycle disappeared through the roof. "He'll be back," Ignotus commented. "You think," Eileen added cynically.

Before they had time to panic, or to call Kreacher, or to do anything sensible, a projectile of swirling metal came back down the chimney with a thunderous thud. All three children jumped aside. "Don't try it again," Ignotus told his sister with fear that she would try to help him using dimension shifting and hurt herself. "Alphard will be fine. He has to be."

Alphard sat up amidst rather deprecated bicycle remnants. He appeared dizzy and disorientated. Eileen handed him the stinky cauldron for vomiting, but he politely refused it. Only one wheel, loose handle bars and the chain made it back from wherever he went. But Alphard's eyes were twinkling brighter than all the stars in the known universe, when he told them what he saw, excited, showing them a pair of blackened palms, impervious to his obvious state of injury.

"It was brilliant," he said, "this odd Crystal Sphere and an old fashioned motorbike, a model my father would adore, they were circling a star... I have to see it again!"

"Maybe you should still work a bit on this before you try it again," Eileen said in a tone that meant it was hopeless; Alphard would kill himself next time, and she would laugh at it when it happened

"You are right," Alphard said dreamily, not even noticing the irony in her voice, "the potion still has to be somewhat refined... And the destination better thought over..."

Cassiopeia and Ignotus looked at each other and smirked.

The attic door swung open again. Alphard's mother stood tall in the frame, his father peered shyly from behind. The expression in Sirius's eyes was between worried, impressed and totally amazed, full of understanding of what had happened.

"Oh no," Ariana said. "And I thought with him being sorted in Ravenclaw he would be more prudent than us."

"Here the adventure begins again," Sirius said giddily, his voice filled with fatherly pride. "He is our son, you know."

The cloud of black smoke descended to the attic through the roof, following Alphard's earlier trajectory. Val materialised first. Uncle Snape took his time to regain his more usual body shape around her, paying particular attention to quickly replace the fiercely caring look he reserved only for his wife by a more characteristic evil glare.

But Alphard knew better. The cheerful bitterness of Snape's stare told that his uncle was quite pleased about seeing them all. In his way, at least. One day Sirius's son was going to be brave enough to ask Uncle Snivelly to teach him _that_ flight spell... But not for many years.

"I'm bringing my wife for the ladies' tea," Snape said. "I trust dear Bella will not be late. We wouldn't want to miss our concert despite the ground-breaking news that her trial might finally be over..."

"It took them only 12 years to figure things out," Val said, "and let her go."

"It's not certain yet," Ariana said, taking Val's hand. "It might take another year before the final sentence is passed. But at least they established beyond doubt that it was she and not Gilderoy Lockheart who revived the Longbottoms... There is evidence not even the Ministry will be able to tamper with."

Val chuckled darkly, in a way that indicated she wasn't so confident about that. "Let's leave the men to their duelling games," she told Ariana. "We can wait for Bella downstairs. She didn't turn any more patient with time so she should be here any minute."

"Oh I'm sure that Albus's new portrait in the hallway can keep her company," Ariana said, "I hope that they will remain civil to each other. "

A powerful new crack of Apparition confirmed Val's words about the imminent arrival, followed by an unspecified burst of light, illuminating the entire house, from top to bottom. Cassiopeia shivered and re-arranged her dress in haste, as if her mother could trace back the illegal magic she performed from the way the exuberant green folds were hanging loose on one side.

"Civil is too demanding," Val commented, pushing Ariana rapidly out of the attic.

When the ladies left, Sirius fixated his son with a knowledgeable look of his pale grey eyes, waiting.

"Dad," Alphard started, "I can explain..."

At least there was a glimpse of hope that Alphard would not be such an ordinary wizard after all.

**THE END**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Thank you to everyone who left a kudos, a comment or bookmarked this story. Thank you :-))


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